The last major demonstration organized by the PP was in Madrid at the beginning of December. It coincided with the weekend in which the first meeting of PSOE and Junts took place in Geneva with the chosen mediator, the Salvadoran Francisco Galindo Vélez. The popular ones once again tested their capacity for mobilization after two very active months in the streets. And they found an answer. Although the circumstance was particular, in Genoa they assured that if the meeting in Switzerland had not occurred “there would be other reasons” for discomfort with the Government. “Every week something happens. It’s guaranteed”they claimed.
The battle against the amnesty law and everything surrounding Pedro Sánchez’s pacts with the independentists (the published polls confirm a strong response, even among PSOE voters) will continue to be fought in the streets, according to what sources said then and now confirm. of the popular leadership. Christmas, yes, forced us to take a “break” because they were complicated dates to ask society to give up holidays or reunions to demonstrate.
And yet, this Sunday Alberto Núñez Feijóo will be in Pamplona supporting the Unión del Pueblo Navarra (UPN), after the pact between PSOE and EH Bildu to take the mayor’s office from them. “It was not planned, but we have no other possible reaction. “We are going to react to every outrage or abuse of this Government,” they advance from the national leadership, recognizing that it is an opposition strategy that they could not even count on months ago.
What of Pamplona, different leaders agree, opens “another scenario”, a line that until now the socialists had not crossed. The leader of the PP spoke of the “most miserable pact” that Sánchez has ever signed. Beyond the adjectives, there are many popular positions that do see the nationalist left consolidated as a partner of the PSOE, at the same level as the PNV, with this decision.
The pact to expel UPN from the Pamplona mayor’s office (the hegemonic center-right party in Navarra with which the PP was not able to redirect its electoral coalitions, to the point that the two best-known deputies, Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanerohave ended up fully integrated into the popular acronyms) has reinforced, the Feijóo team assures, the strategy of keep the mobilization alive in the streets.
If at any time there were internal approaches to the extent to which they should “take a break” or take into account the possible exhaustion of people, especially now that the cold monthsIn the PP they are convinced that they will maintain a high level of attendance. And they warn that January may already be the first momentas soon as political activity resumes after the Christmas break.
It so happens that it is a non-working month in Congress, so institutional action will necessarily decline. And if there is still news, they insist, now that the date of the meeting that Pedro Sánchez and Carles Puigdemont could have remains to be seen, “the answer will come immediately.”
The field work that the PP is doing in its autonomies and provinces, now that they have deployed extensive regional and municipal power, confirms, they say at the top, “that society “He has not become unmotivated or tired” of the protests. “People don’t swallow all this. And they keep asking us to respond. Christmas is what it is and it cannot be called. But we don’t feel tired, quite the opposite,” they say, confirming that their roadmap will not change. Even less seeing that, also against all odds, see that flag taken away from Vox, its leader on the right and whose strength until now had been mobilization. In recent months, the extreme right was portrayed as the only party that encouraged protests at the PSOE headquarters in Ferraz, despite the fact that many participants carried pre-constitutional symbols every night and harshly confronted the security forces.
As this newspaper published, Feijóo’s plans were never to become a mass leader or to bet on a opposition halfway between the institutional and the protest. To the point that for many years the Galician leader did not defend that very active position of his party. In Genoa they recognize it and assure that it was the new political scenario that has forced the former president of the Xunta to reconvert. And in that same framework they also point out the developments in the new teams and in the structure of the match which, this time, has surprised all the sensitivities that are integrated.
At the institutional level, the popular ones keep several avenues open. The processing of the amnesty law began last Tuesday with the taking into consideration. Now come the rest of the steps, including the full and partial amendments in committee, and the return to the Chambers, especially the Senate, where the PP will use its absolute majority to delay the deadlines as much as possible. It also remains to be seen how the commissions that intend to investigate the alleged cases of ‘lawfare’ in Spain around the independence movement get underway.
A matter that has raised the judiciary in arms and that also keeps the eyes open of the European Union, the other great asset in which the PP continues to trust. There are leaders who acknowledge having raised expectations, but within the conservative leadership they continue to defend that community institutions “will not allow steps backwards in the rule of law,” and that beyond the work of the opposition, what is really important are the statements of associations of judges and other officials who have already raised their complaints.
In Sánchez’s last joint appearance as acting president of the EU Council with the presidents of the Commission and the European Council, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel respectively, the socialist received lukewarm signs of support in the midst of the PP’s onslaught. The community leaders valued the Spanish presidency, but used very generic words to avoid giving concrete support.
