The call was not minor and, therefore, the expectation was not minor either.. If the convening power of Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra already has few competitors, the political situation that our country is going through turned the presentation of the book by the former vice president of the Government into the meeting point that several generations of socialists demanded, and in which it shone Due to his absence, any representative of Ferraz or the PSOE parliamentary group. In fact, the only regional president currently who attended was the Castilian-Manchego, Emiliano García-Page.
The Major Chair of the Ateneo de Madrid had already become too small an hour before the event started. The annex room enabled for the press even more. Former ministers, deputies, regional presidents, senior institutional officials and diplomats close to the classic PSOE and most opposed to the party's approach to nationalism packed the room for two purposes: to witness the “historic” almost ceremonial reunion between Guerra and González three decades later and show how many “coincidences” exist against the direction of the party apparatus, at a time when the leadership accuses them of having orchestrated a plot against Pedro Sánchez. Nicolás Redondo, expelled last week for his criticism of the amnesty, received the first ovation of the afternoon upon entering the room.
Nicolás Redondo, protagonist after his expulsion from the PSOE. . DIAZ
The feeling of response to the Government's roadmap was total because the amnesty and the referendum had been floating in the air since mid-afternoon.. Emiliano García-Page and Javier Lambán, the two barons most critical of Sanchismo, confirmed the suspicions when they appeared in parallel at the Plaza de las Cortes and powerfully headed down the uneven Prado street.. The cameras and microphones approached them halfway. And, almost as an opening act for what was to come, they opened the tap that led to a waterfall minutes later on stage: “Every time there has been some type of controversy in Spain, the PSOE has suffered,” Page warned to demand that a debate should be opened in the party about the fit of the amnesty: “Let's see if only Puigdemont will be able to speak.”
But he has already advanced that if the measure goes ahead with the vote of its beneficiaries, that is, of the independence movement, “it lacks a moral basis.”. Page, who was coming from his audience with Felipe VI, blamed “the circumstances” for the reconciliation between Guerra and González. And he took advantage of his position as the main territorial baron to throw a dart at Ferraz: “I have an absolute majority because of what I think.”
Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra and Juan José Laborda. . DIAZ
It has been a long time since the groups have symbolized as much as they did this afternoon at the Ateneo. Guerra and González, who were presented as the inseparable “Starsky and Hutch”, received the guests in a small office through which a good part of the personalities passed.. From there Page, Lambán and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, former president of Extremadura, among others, came together.. There were several of the most trusted ministers for the author of the book and González: José Barrionuevo, José Luis Corcuera, Virgilio Zapatero. Also Juan Barranco, who was mayor of Madrid. Adolfo Suárez Illana, formerly of the PP, and Antonio Miguel Carmona, former regional deputy of the PSOE, also exchanged feelings before the start.
“They are absolutely irrefutable,” Lambán concluded before even listening to the intervention of the former vice president and former president of the Government.. When Guerra demanded that Sánchez – whom he considered “disloyal” and “dissident” – not to carry out the amnesty, the applause reached the press room, where guests, assistants and other important personalities, such as former Valencian president Joan Lerma, also gathered. .