National alarm in Spain over Sánchez's urgent plans with Catalan separatists
🔊 Senior socialist leaders sound alarm from within party over Sánchez's criminal reform for Catalan separatists. Govt. denies there will be a referendum.
🔊 AUDIO
I don't understand what Sánchez gains politically from the additional concessions to the Catalan separatists. This is not a mini favour that no one will notice. It is a major tweak, repealing or slashing the jail time for crimes the friends in question have been accused and convicted of. They already have their pardons for the Supreme Court jail sentences related to the declaration of independence in 2017. This parliament was already tied up nicely with the final 2023 budget. There are six months left until the local and regional elections, and a year until the general election.
From Esquerra's perspective, it's easier: in the spirit of that “fuck around, find out” meme, last time they found out that the obstacles on the road to their dream republic were called sedition and the miuse of public funds, and criminal trials in the damn courts. Now, instead of thinking about how to get around the obstacles on the next attempt, as the stupid common criminals would do in the bank heist movie, if you have political friends like, say, the Prime Minister, what better than to send him a few Whatsapps and just get the obstacles and the police removed altogether for next time. Look at that, foolish courts, what crimes are you talking about, now?
Esquerra is insisting again, and in a very public manner, that they want a referendum. Will Sanchez give it to them? When, if there is a risk that Sánchez will be voted out next year? Could it perhaps be in 2023? The Minister for the PM’s Office, Félix Bolaños, and the government spokeswoman, Isabel Rodríguez, both denied it today: they say there will be no referendum, despite how obvious that path seems to the opposition and some senior PSOE leaders. The government’s word, after so many previous setbacks, is worth what it is worth.
Junqueras insisted again on the radio: "organising a referendum is not in the Criminal Code". Even less so in a few days time. Esquerra has already worked out the numbers, as was clear in their document yesterday.
At the last regional elections in Catalonia, in February 2021, some 5.7 million people had the right to vote. Esquerra first proposes a 50% turnout level, which is 2.85 million people. Then they say 55% would need to vote in favor of secession. 55% of 2.85 million people is about 1.57 million people.
How many people in Catalonia voted in favor of secession on November 9, 2014, when Artur Mas organised it? 1.8 million. How many people voted in favor of secession on October 1, 2017, when Puigdemont organised it? Two million. How many people voted in favor of the separatist parties in the 2017 regional elections, when Rajoy suspended home rule? Two million. Which is to say, the plan is that if fewer than the usual number of voters vote to leave, they’re off. Has Sánchez signed up for that, however he hides the trick under political rhetoric to make is seem superficially constitutional?
In parliament today, the justice commission approved the processing of the repeal of sedition and the reduction of sentences for the misuse of public funds. 19 votes in favor, 17 against. It will now go to a vote in the chamber.
"Let's imagine that in a few months or a year, two years, they do an operation like the one in 2017 again", the former socialist Deputy Prime Minister, Alfonso Guerra, wondered aloud this morning on the radio: "and that they make the decision to proclaim an independent Catalan republic, and there is no public disorder. What can they be accused of? Public disorder? No. Sedition? No, because the crime no longer exists. So they can repeat what they did in 2017, this time without people on the streets, and no one can accuse them of anything”. That would leave "Spanish democracy absolutely unprotected".
This is what the separatists have been calling the dejudicialisation of the path.
Emiliano García-Page, the Socialist First Minister of Castilla la Mancha, is not having it and has said today that he agrees with Alfonso Guerra: "We cannot tolerate doing a deal with criminals about their own sentences".
“The first thing that would bother me,” he said, “is if they were to take us for fools; me too. This is a serious moment for Spanish politics. From my point of view, it is one of those moments that gets engraved in the collective retina. This really is history in the making. I am very much against the government's decision".
PP leader Feijóo says he is not budging, that he is waiting until next year for Spaniards to just vote for him, that the pre-campaign for the May elections begins next month, after a long month of Christmas festivities, and that then at the end of 2023, there will be a general election, which is why he left the regional government in Galicia and made the effort to move to Madrid. That is how he sees his grand plan, how he sees his role in it, and how he sees the evolution of the timings of it all. He will not support the motion of no confidence if Abascal (Vox) is the candidate. In other words, he prefers that Sánchez, whom he accuses of "authoritarian drift", continue to govern without opposition if Abascal is going to be the star of the show, even knowing that together the two parties do not have enough votes to win.
"If they don't do it, if this thing is that serious but they are not capable of doing anything, if Vox once again remains alone, and if only Vox remains, we will do it", said Vox spokesman Iván Espinosa de los Monteros in Congress.
I rang Parliament again this evening. They again replied, as they did yesterday, that no party has tabled a motion of no confidence today.
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