The appearance of Pedro Sánchez for spying on independentists with the Pegasus ‘malware’ has served to confirm what is already known: the animosity of the PP, Vox and Ciudadanos (Cs) towards the President of the Government, whom they have accused of putting in check the institutions for their political alliances with the separatists. But it has also shown the distance that separates Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal in the way they carry out their opposition work.
One, willing to reach out endlessly, despite his offers being met with contempt; another, pigeonholed in the ‘no to everything’ and suspicious of anyone framed in “collaborationism”. PP and Vox, who have barely started their first coalition in Castilla y León, still look at each other askance, with distrust, as if everything between them could blow up at any moment.
They are united, and that has become clear once again, by their forceful criticism of sanchismo, to which Cs joined a long time ago, angered by his attempt to ‘save’ Sánchez from his pacts with ERC and EH Bildu, who precisely, together to the Plural Group, demanded the appearance that has forced the president to give explanations this Thursday before the Plenary Session of Congress against his will.
Once again, in the week in which Núñez Feijóo has finally taken office as a senator by autonomous appointment, it is made visible, however, that in the important debates, the leader of the opposition is not there. His number two, Cuca Gamarra, has been in charge of championing the position of the ‘new PP’, which combines the opposition’s own reproach with an outstretched hand in foreign policy and national security.
Gamarra, from the seat that would correspond to Núñez Feijóo if he were a deputy, has had to listen to how Sánchez has used more than fifteen minutes of an hour-long intervention to censor the corruption of the PP and the alleged illicit use of the Ministry of the Interior in the operation Kitchen. The general secretary of the popular ones has barely mentioned the socialist case of the ERE in Andalusia at the beginning of her speech, almost as a self-reflection, but later she has focused completely on the issue of the agenda.
Contrary to “half of her government”, the leader of the PP has remarked in reference to United We Can, her party has been on the side of the PSOE in relation to the war in Ukraine or the NATO summit to be held in Madrid at the end of June. Gamarra, several times, has criticized him for not being “a good ruler” and has been the first to bring up a reproach repeated later by Abascal and by Inés Arrimadas: “He handed over the leadership of the State to those he was investigating for being a threat to the state”.
This apparent contradiction, that the National Intelligence Center (CNI) investigated pro-independence leaders while Sánchez negotiated his investiture with them in January 2020, is “unbelievable” for Gamarra, who has also charged against “the clumsiness” that meant revealing in a conference press that the president and some ministers had also been spied on with Pegasus.
The general secretary of the PP has announced the request that the official secrets commission be convened in Congress so that the Government privately details everything related to the intervention of the terminal of the chief executive, who has been asked what type of information They took him away so that the Spanish know first-hand “if they have a free president or one with his hands tied.”
«He dismissed the director of the CNI [Paz Esteban] for fulfilling her role of investigating and keeping him informed. You have been informed, do not forget that we have been in La Moncloa”, Gamarra has stirred up, moments before reminding him that he can count on the PP to “improve intelligence”, but not on his partners. The president, in his initial intervention, has announced that he will approve a new law on classified information and will reform the judicial control of the CNI, as recently proposed by the PNV.
Abascal, who has risen to the speaker’s rostrum just after Gamarra, has shown off his usual repertoire, recalling the great political success of Vox: the unconstitutionality of the first two national states of alarm due to the coronavirus pandemic. That premise, which the Government accepted without assuming any responsibility, has served to reiterate the name of “autocrat” -the socialist Héctor Gómez has unsuccessfully tried to get the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, to withdraw the word from the newspaper of sessions- and define the president as “a lie with legs”. “The lie made person,” he specified.
“It has criminalized and dismissed those who protect us and has associated with those who threaten us,” he snapped, already entering the Pegasus issue. In this sense, he has added that the Government of PSOE and United We Can have incorporated the protagonists of “a coup d’état” into “the direction of the State”. “Spain is not going to be your broken toy,” the leader of Vox has vehemently warned, who has even questioned the veracity of the espionage on Sánchez and his ministers: “It comes to us with a history of wiretapping and spies . If it’s true, why is he telling it? If it isn’t, why do you make it up?
But from his speech, what has attracted the most attention is the crystal clear message that he has sent to the president of the PP – “the seized right” – and leader of the opposition: “What is Mr. Feijóo doing offering pacts? No collaborationism with this government is acceptable. “The Spaniards -Abascal has warned- what they want is alternatives”. “Lords of the PP, Spain needs a strong opposition and we offer them a hand for it. She does not need a false responsibility of the State », the leader of Vox has appealed, with his eyes fixed on the popular bench.
Arrimadas, president of Cs, began her speech by citing phrases that called for “protecting” the Government, pronounced by personalities such as Andoni Ortuzar (PNV), Arnaldo Otegi and Mertxe Aizpurua (Bildu), and Oriol Junqueras (ERC). Three of those four people, the liberal leader recalled, were convicted “of very serious crimes” and are now parliamentary allies of the Executive. «That blue chair -Arrimadas has continued in reference to the president’s seat- is the most expensive chair in all of Spain. You are a wrecking ball against the institutions of the State».
In this regard, Arrimadas has criticized the distribution of the Spanish Agency for Data Protection between the PSOE and the PP – annulled this week by the Supreme Court, as reported by ABC -, that of the Court of Accounts, the appointment of Dolores Delgado as attorney general of the State, the dismissal of Paz Esteban at the head of the CNI… But in addition, especially sensitive to the ruling that requires at least twenty-five percent of classes to be taught in Spanish in Catalonia, she has lamented not only that the Executive did not move « a finger” to guarantee teaching in Spanish, but now maneuvers -in allusion to the PSC- along with nationalism to avoid the sentence with a law that, he has said, “is shameless”.
Already focused on Pegasus, the leader of Cs has asserted that the question is not why the CNI follows up on those who “threaten” Spain, but why the Prime Minister agrees with them. In response to the president’s two announcements, she has expressed that “they put their finger” on public servants and has added that the necessary reform of the CNI is one that prevents him from dismissing at will whoever “does his job.” Like Gamarra and Abascal, she has also questioned the appearance in which the espionage was revealed to the Executive.
