Culture wars and demanding separatists
What would regional nationalists demand of Sánchez the second time round?
The PP remains on the defensive instead of taking the initiative with the six debates. “It is one thing to debate and another to swallow the load that Pedro Sánchez intends to submit us to. Spain needs rationality and common sense”, campaign spokesman Borja Semper insisted on TV. “Sánchez wants to swap the street for TV sets because he can’t go out on the streets”, said Cuca Gamarra, PP spokeswoman in parliament. They are giving away the framing and perception of the matter to the socialists, who only have to keep saying, as they are doing on their Twitter account and in TV interviews, that the conservatives are hiding from democracy for some reason. They can even do some iniquitous second-order speculation about why that might be: “When Feijóo rejects the debates, why is he hiding? Either because he doesn’t have a plan or because he doesn’t want to tell us about his real plan”. In other words, not only is he fleeing and hiding but he is doing so for nefarious reasons that go against voters’ interests.
Feijóo managed to enrage the left with his promise yesterday to ditch the Equality and Culture ministries and repeal transgender and historical memory laws. “This is the transphobic hate speech that is waiting for us if the friend of the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado becomes Prime Minister”, said Echenique, the Podemos spokesman in parliament. “The PP is starting to show its cards”, said the Culture Minister, Iceta (PSOE): “the first one to the head is to get rid of the Ministry of Culture. I’m sure the result at the ballot box will demand more culture, not less”. Vox doesn’t believe the PP will go through with it anyway: “What is to stop the PP from repealing the transgender laws they themselves passed in Galicia, Madrid and Andalusia, that talk about ‘the free self-determination of sex’?”, they tweeted.
Do battles in the culture wars ever achieve anything except enraging both sides even more in favour of their already polarised tribe?
More substantianally, we should note the first reactions of the key regionalist parties going into the battle for this general election. If the vote ends up being as tight as some of the polls suggest it might be, their seats in parliament will again be very important for deciding the next government. “The key is not for the PSOE to be strong to stop what is on its right, the key is for Esquerra and Bildu to be strong to force them to deal with what’s on their left”, said Esquerra’s Gabriel Rufián, who favours increasing the price for their support for a new coalition. In favour of what? Catalan independence, of course: “A price that says to Sánchez: Catalonia or Vox”.
Bildu, the far-left Basque separatist party that ran with 44 convicted terrorists, including seven murderers, in their election lists and promptly won more seats last week, wants to put “Spain as a plurinational state” on the table if the left-wing coalition is renewed. “There won’t be a progressive government in the Spanish state without the agreement of the pro-independence left”, the party tweeted. Basque nationalist conservatives (PNV), though, are displeased with Sánchez. Their chairman, Ortuzar, has this morning publicly labelled the PM “selfish” for calling a snap general election. Might that be a first sign that his party would dump Sánchez, switch sides and reach out to support conservatives at the national level?
In Barcelona too, there are reports the PP might allow Catalan separatist conservatives to grab Barcelona City Hall from the left and republican Catalan separatists. “We must say this clearly, they are leaving Barcelona in the hands of Puigdemont’s party […] that is terrible and I fell scandalised”, protested the Defence Minister, Margarita Robles (PSOE), on TV this morning. The government that pardoned the Catalan separatists who were found guilty of sedition and the misuse of public funds and sentenced to many years in jail by the Supreme Court because they needed their votes in parliament at the national level is now shocked the PP might support Catalan conservatives to kick the left out of local government in the Catalan capital.
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Hi Matthew.
Im so fascinated by your articles with which I agree almost to the last dot that I'm going to reach you on Twitter. I think it's on Twitter where I discovered your knowledge on spanish politics , passion that I share with you .
Best always.