The crisis within the coalition stay rooted after a meeting that was held virtually in secret and ended with more blame than progress. The PSOE and Sumar are unable to reduce the tension after the crisis of cases of corruption and sexual harassment in the socialist ranks and they are also incapable of calming the internal conflict over the political responsibilities for the rise of Vox. This Friday’s meeting, presented as an attempt to reorient the situation, showed the absence of agreements and left intact the exchange of reproaches which has already lasted for more than a week.
After the succession of controversies within the PSOE, the second vice-president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, sought a week ago to mark the distances and demanded from Pedro Sánchez a profound overhaul of the government. The request caused great discomfort to Moncloa when it understood that it was obliged to assume the seriousness of the scenario described by Sumar, that is to say that the legislature is in danger.
Since then, the criticisms have multiplied until the president tried to put an end to the fight by emphasizing what “unites” the partners over the “divergences”. In any case, Sánchez wanted to clarify one point: the demographic growth of Vox “has nothing to do” with government action, as Sumar slips.
It was in this context that the meeting that Díaz had insisted on took place, a discreet meeting with second-rate profiles. In fact, no information was revealed beyond the brief notes each party subsequently released to the media. The opacity of the meeting took on its full meaning when its results were known: not a single breakthrough and, on the contrary, even greater tension.
From the Sumar Movement, IU, Más Madrid and Comuns assured that they were “aware” that the government finds itself facing a “judicial, economic and political” elite, but that this cannot become “an excuse” for “bunkerization” in Ferraz and Moncloa and doesn’t give any explanations. From Ferraz, they insisted on the argument that Sánchez had exposed the day before, calling for following a “common path” and “dialogue” to reach agreements that benefit the social majority of the country.
But if they both made one thing clear during the meeting, it was that the the conflict over responsibility for the rise of Vox continues. Sumar accused the PSOE of maintaining an “immobile attitude” after the scandals broke out and warned that this attitude “only favors progressive discouragement, reinforces anti-politics and fuels PP and Vox and their far-right politics“.
The government does not understand why Díaz persists in attributing the rise of Vox to the PSOE and not to the PP. They consider that, precisely, the Executive must present itself as the brake and not the accelerator of the extreme right. This is why Sánchez has insisted in recent days to clarify that the The only person responsible for Vox’s progress is the People’s Party.
Beyond this discursive divergence, which is in reality what has aggravated the crisis in recent days, Sumar also insisted, during this Friday’s meeting, on something that greatly bothers the PSOE: the need to address a problem government “reformulation”that is, making changes among ministers to give a boost to the legislative body. Sources from Sumar assured that, during the meeting, this issue was addressed with intensity, even if the PSOE remains in its refusal.
Likewise, they demanded the extension of rents or a universal allowance for child education, measures to which the PSOE also opposes. For all these reasons, it seems that the coalition partners They will say goodbye to the year more distant than everboth discursively and programmatically.
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