“Strength would be resignation.” This is how the PP reacted to the press conference taking stock of the year that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, offered this Monday, and during which he reiterated his intention to conclude his mandate in 2027. “He spoke of the beginning of the second half of the legislature,” the Deputy Secretary for Institutional Regeneration, Cuca Gamarra, told the media. And he concluded: “This legislature is over. It has become a simple exercise in resistance on the part of Pedro Sánchez, but it does not have the capacity to solve the problems of the Spanish people.”
Sánchez assured that he had responded “with force” to the judicial and political problems plaguing the PSOE. Especially the scandal of alleged sexual harassment committed by his former confidant, Paco Salazar, and which gave rise to a flood of complaints for similar behavior against other socialist leaders. “The government and my party acted with total transparency and without connivance,” said Sánchez, who said there had been “force” to eradicate this sexist behavior.
For Gamarra, these sexual scandals “mark a point of no return” which makes it impossible to maintain legislative power. Added to corruption scandals, this becomes an untenable situation. “The political responsibility of the president increases every day,” declared the leader of the PP during a press conference this Monday.
Pressure on partners
Gamarra announced that the PP would appear as a popular accusation in the judicial investigation that determined last week the arrest of the former PSOE activist Leire Díez and the former president of the SEPI, Vicente Fernández. A scandal which adds to those already existing and which is full of reasons why the PP calls for the resignation of the President of the Government and the calling of elections.
But aware that today this option is not viable, the PP wants to increase pressure on Sánchez’s parliamentary support: his partners. Gamarra thus asked the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, that Sumar support this Tuesday at the Congressional Table the PP’s request for an extraordinary plenary session for Sánchez to appear and give explanations on the latest police and judicial actions.
“It’s not enough to pretend to be angry and do nothing,” Díaz Gamarra criticized. The PP vice-secretary believes that it is not enough to “say that there needs to be an adjustment from the government and ask for explanations”, which is what the PP demands from Sánchez. “He can do much more. Yolanda Díaz has the power to make the president of the government appear before Congress before the end of this year and report to Spanish society.”
In profile with Vox and Revuelta
The force that the PP demands from Sánchez is not transferred to his Vox allies. Gamarra avoided commenting on the internal war that the far right is going through, with the leak of audio on the relations between the party led by Santiago Abascal and its youth branch, the accusations of withholding money intended for the victims of the dana or the threats of dismissal.
“We are not going to play the role of arbiters of Vox,” Gamarra said, not wanting to analyze the merits of the case. “They have a problem, it would be good if they gave an explanation,” he simply declared.
Gamarra concluded that “the PP is not making a bad opponent”, a frequent accusation that those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo make to those of Abascal. “Endemic corruption exists in the PSOE, in the financing of the PSOE and in all the corruption that affects the PSOE. Corruption has a first and last name, Pedro Sánchez,” he concluded.
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