The imminent arrival of the month of August appears as the great ally for the “discretion” and “prudence” demanded by several of the actors involved in the negotiations for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, focused above all on the votes of the seven deputies of Together for Catalonia. A dialogue that is presumed “difficult” and “complex”, as recognized by the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz. However, the acting second vice president of the Government is convinced that they will be able to once again form a coalition Executive headed by the PSOE.
As he explained in an interview published yesterday in La Voz de Galicia, Díaz assumes that both the self-determination referendum and the amnesty will be addressed in the talks with Carles Puigdemont's party, since “in a democracy you have to be able to talk about everything”. Of course, the founder of the new left-wing platform pointed out that “the limits are the constitutional framework, the current legality and the democratic framework”. A framework that, according to Lander Martínez, a deputy elected by Vizcaya and one of Díaz's closest collaborators during Sumar's first steps, offers “many tools for decentralization, national recognition, jurisdiction and the construction of a federal or confederal State, even with asymmetrical character”, according to what he declared to Radio Euskadi.
Aware that the post-convergents face the negotiation displaying their votes at the price of gold, the also Minister of Labor pointed out that “no one can be more interested than the Catalans in that this goes well”. “The worst thing that could have happened to Catalonia and Spain is a government with Santiago Abascal as vice president,” he said in relation to a hypothetical alliance of the PP and Vox in La Moncloa if they had achieved a greater number of deputies.
electoral repetition
The danger of “an authoritarian mandate” was also raised yesterday by Ada Colau. The leader of the commons [Sumar's Catalan reference] warned Junts that an electoral repetition, in the event of a blockade, “would be playing with fire” and recalled that in Catalonia “there was a massive anti-fascist vote”. The former mayoress of Barcelona considers that there is an opportunity “to move forward in de-judicializing the political conflict and in other issues that have been pending for a long time, such as financing, the use of Catalan or the transfer of Cercanías”.
Colau considers that the independence formation led by Laura Borràs and Jordi Turull should distinguish between the investiture and the subsequent mandate when demanding its maximum program. “You cannot ask for things that cannot be done in two weeks, but you can lay the foundations to try to do it during the legislature,” he advised from the Rac1 microphones.
Given the proximity of the first litmus test, the composition of the Table of the Congress of Deputies, voices continue to arrive that try to appease the theoretical red lines in the negotiations. If a week ago it was the general coordinator of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, who guaranteed the support of his six parliamentarians for the re-election of Sánchez as president of the Government, yesterday it was the new Minister of Education of the Generalitat, the republican Anna Simó, who warned that a bipartisan Executive of the PP and Vox “would be devastating for education in Catalonia”. For this reason, in an interview in the newspaper VilaWeb, the leader of Esquerra maintained that “in no case can this government be formed due to inaction by the Catalan parties.” A responsibility that also includes the PSC, whose first secretary, Salvador Illa, has shown his rejection of a repeat election.