Don't say amnesty, call it octopus

SPAIN / By Cruz Ramiro

Pedro Sánchez did not come out to give explanations to public opinion, but to play with it. Whether he wins the votes for his investiture for the third time remains to be seen, but Tabú is surely winning. The acting president only needed an hourglass on the Moncloa lectern to finish staging that board game in which the rest of us guess the word he is talking about without using that or similar words.. And he nailed it. He said that he accepted the King's order to form a Government without pronouncing the amnesty he needs to achieve it..

At the press conference in which he was supposed to give explanations, what came out was to go around in circles.. Concordia said it many times, he talked about the war, the pandemic and miraculously he did not remember the volcano. He spoke of social progress, stable employment and decent wages; pensions for the elderly and training for young people; How strange that he didn't remember the Interrail and the free cinema in order to save a little more time. The amnesty, not to mention it.

Euphemisms have always been used in politics, but what happened with Sánchez is another level. He does not seek dissimulation with similar concepts that sound better, like Zapatero when he spoke of deceleration by not saying the word crisis even if the men in black came to spell it for him; or Montoro, who was very dignified defending that regularization that he did not want to call a tax amnesty and that then overturned the Constitutional Court, which is more about laws than euphemisms.

It takes a master of Taboo to make yourself understood so well by saying just the opposite.. That has more merit than the synonyms trick. Sánchez talks about respect for the laws and the rule of law, and it is clear that he talks about amnesty for those who break it. The more Sánchez talks about the importance of defending the Constitution, the more clear it is that he is going to do everything possible to give what he asks for from Puigdemont, who still does not commit to respecting it..

Denying that he was going to accept a referendum was the definitive clue. He was so forceful in denying it that his lack of forcefulness in everything else was clairvoyant.. When defending the pardons he failed to wink, but the rules of Taboo prohibit gestures. It was not necessary. It was perfectly understood what he was referring to when he alleged that the agreement reached will be endorsed by Congress. This is what always happens with investitures.. And, as if it were the most normal thing in the world, because a good Tabú player always speaks as if any problem in understanding was the one in front of him, he added that what is remembered will have to be ruled on later by the Constitutional Court.. And then harmony and coexistence returned again, their favorite wild card of opacity.

An investiture candidate who beats Taboo loses in honesty. If the acting president believes that an amnesty can be good for Spain, as well as for him, he should not have so many qualms about starting by naming her to explain it, regardless of what comes out after his negotiations.. Above all, taking into account that the last time he said the word amnesty it was to oppose it.

If, instead of Tabú, Sánchez were betting on Scattergories for the investiture, he would ask us to accept Puigdemont as a pet. The bad thing is that here we are playing something else.