Ángel Collado
In terms of the election campaign, the PSOE and Podemos are taking the divorce of Pedro Sánchez’s coalition on feminism to Congress and the streets this week.
The President of the Government is trying to alleviate his wear and tear over the “only yes is yes” law which, for the moment, has resulted in 721 sex offenders benefiting from reduced sentences. Podemos, with minister Irene Montero at the forefront, proclaims itself to be the true defender of women, the only one even given that the socialists need the support of the right in Parliament to correct the botched law.
The Lower House, this Tuesday, and the streets of Madrid, the following day, with two different and this time opposing demonstrations, will be the scene of the clash between the more classical feminism of the socialist left and the radical or more populist one led by the party founded by Pablo Iglesias. The ministers Irene Montero (Iglesias’ wife) and Ione Belarra (secretary general) now control the party.
Both parties, PSOE and Podemos, dispute the political hegemony of a movement that they consider their own, while accusing “the right”, in general, of going against women’s equality.
The PSOE’s commitment to feminism dates back to the times of Felipe González, in the 1980s. The reformulation of the movement advocated by Iglesias’ party in their electoral programmes for 2019 is already embodied in the laws of Sánchez’s government, such as the aforementioned “only yes is yes” or the “Trans” of “gender self-determination”. And they do so against the opinion of the classic socialist feminists with the former vice-president of the government Carmen Calvo at the head.
When he set up his coalition with Iglesias, Sánchez left the ministerial area of tutelage and promotion of feminism, the Department of Equality, under the control of Montero. When any conflict arose with the socialist part of the executive, its president always bowed to the postulates of Podemos. And from the autonomy of the other sector of the cabinet, endorsed by the president of the government and approved by the left-wing majority in Congress, came the “only yes is yes” law.
With a minimum of 721 rapists and paedophiles benefiting from the reduced sentences established in this law and 74 of them already on the street (data from last week), tomorrow Congress will debate the legal reform presented by the socialists to correct the current text. Podemos, which is entrenched in the discourse that the fault lies with the judges, not with Montero’s text, has announced that it will vote against it.
Sánchez wants a quick rectification to mitigate the personal erosion and that of his party before the May elections that the application of a law that he defended for months and set as an example for the rest of the world has caused him. He prefers the spectacle of the public rupture of his coalition (only in this matter) to the image of remaining impassive in the face of the problem that has arisen.
Montero also opts for a clash and rules out cession. As Pablo Iglesias has already stated, Podemos aspires to take advantage of the divorce with the argument that Sánchez is going to rely on “the right” to push through the counter-reform. Dialectical ammunition for the election campaign.
The PP, Vox and Ciudadanos will vote in favour of the text to at least reinstate sentences for future rapists because the law cannot have retroactive effects. And they will do so without prior negotiation or any consideration whatsoever, out of mere institutional responsibility and, incidentally, to assist in the rupture of relations between the parties in power.
Sánchez and Montero seek to reconcile with their respective bases in the parliamentary procedure, in the separate demonstrations on the 8th and even in the meetings of the Council of Ministers.
With an eye on 28 May, regional elections in half of Spain and municipal elections throughout the country, the president of the government announced new feminist measures (representation quotas) in public institutions and large companies on his own and at a party event last weekend.
The draft bill has not passed through the Ministry of Equality and Sánchez launches it in support of his party’s fight for the feminist cause. Montero retorts that it falls far short, she wants obligatory parity in all social spheres. The electoral and populist race has only just begun.
