The acting President of the Government of Spain, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, yesterday received the order from King Felipe VI to form a Government after the failure of the right and sent a first nod to the Catalan groups to obtain their support in Congress, by assuring that “doing politics implies generosity, it implies commitment to your country and logically implies leadership”, although without mentioning the word “amnesty”.
As planned, after the leader of the right-wing and opposition Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, failed last week to achieve a majority in Parliament to head the next Government, the monarch received yesterday at the Zarzuela Palace Sánchez, second in votes in the elections of last July 23.
“Doing politics implies generosity, it implies commitment to your country and logically it implies leadership,” said the head of the socialist party (PSOE) upon leaving his meeting with the king when journalists asked him if he would be willing to grant an amnesty to some 1,400 people sentenced with greater or lesser sentences for the Catalan independence attempt of 2017.
The statement was immediately taken as a signal intended to sweeten the ears of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Junts per Catalunya (JxC), the two Catalan groups that could lead him to re-election if he manages to obtain their essential votes.
Sánchez initially avoided saying the word “amnesty”, one of the main conditions that the Catalans put in place to agree, although not the only one, since both ERC and JxC have now added another demand: the call for an independence referendum.
This second challenge seems to be much more difficult, given that Sánchez himself rejected that possibility “not only out of commitment and constitutional demand, but out of a political conviction.” “It is contrary to my word and my action,” concluded the socialist, who trusts that he will finally achieve the support of the Catalans and those of other autonomous parties to reach the figure of 176 votes in the Congress, of 350 seats.
Regarding that crucial number, the socialist assured that if during the course of the negotiations he confirms that there will be no agreement, he will express this so that new elections are automatically called and no time is wasted, as happened with Feijóo, who continued with his process. of investiture even when it was clear that he would not achieve a parliamentary majority.
In his opinion, the Catalans want to “turn the page on this situation” and generate a reunion between institutions and citizens of Catalonia and Spain as a whole, a situation that Sánchez himself had been describing in his campaign as a “conflict” that requires a “ political solution” and not one that emerges “in other areas.”
Source: Ambito
