The PP considers its objective accomplished: "You just had to see Sánchez's face; they know they were wrong"

The PP has not considered this investiture as an arithmetic procedure towards La Moncloa. Alberto Núñez Feijóo's team did not escape the fact that – just as now as a month ago – there were no real possibilities of winning a single vote beyond the 172 gathered together with Vox, the Canarian Coalition and the Navarro People's Union.. “We are not stupid,” Feijóo told the PSOE, and that also applies to managing the expectations of the popular people, who knew what they were going for.

But Genoa had not raised this debate as a fungible procedure, but as a first-level political event.. What Feijóo wanted was to take advantage of Felipe VI's commission to define the governance debate, with his sights set more on Pedro Sánchez than on himself and with the amnesty as a “context.”. That is, as the real protagonist of the parliamentary fray.

«We have achieved exactly what we wanted. Portray others. Seeing the faces of the PSOE deputies today [yesterday], we are even happier,” says a leader from Genoa.. “Now amnesty is more difficult,” adds another member of the popular leadership.. “It has helped us that Sánchez does not appear” on the speakers' platform to “not talk about the amnesty”. “They were wrong and they know it,” say the sources.

Feijóo himself said he felt “satisfied” upon leaving Congress: “I can't be more satisfied, honestly.”. What good has the investiture been? «It has been proven who won the elections and who was four votes short of the absolute majority. Is a new stage opening? «On Friday we have to vote again». And then? “And then we will see the votes and we will continue working for our country,” he simply said.

With an eye on his own electoral space, for Feijóo this plenary session has been a before and after. He had to consolidate the leadership (in the opposition, in principle) and establish the guidelines for a solid alternative that not only managed to convince all the PP families at the same time and completely – something that has happened for the first time in many years -, but rather begin to broaden the bases for the next appointment with the polls. Be it January 14, be it in 2027, or before. “Now or soon,” the still-candidate repeats like a responsorial psalm.

Feijóo will continue “yes or yes”

Nobody in the PP leadership or in the map of territorial power saw the investiture in terms of government success, but rather as proof of Feijóo's leadership.. The Galician leader has not only met the expectations of his people, but has sent a strong message: he does not even remotely intend to back down on his national political commitment.. “He is a political animal, of course he will continue to lead the opposition until the next elections,” summarizes one of the 11 government barons of the PP.. “For sure, yes or yes,” he insists in response to the – unfounded – rumors that have circulated in recent weeks in the particular radio yard of the popular ones.

The PP believes that it has achieved two political successes in recent days, understanding politics as the ability to seduce and lead the electorate.. The first was the rally on Sunday, with more than 40,000 people according to the Police and more than 65,000, according to the organizers.. It was a boost of self-esteem for the candidate.. The second, the personal duels with the PSOE, with Bildu and with the PNV, which have raised Feijóo's credit as a parliamentary speaker well above that which he brought from the Senate.

So there is euphoria in the main centers of popular power. The most important leaders believe that the investiture session, although it is sterile and will culminate in a resounding rejection of Feijóo by the Sánchez bloc, has served to consolidate the “alternative” to the coalition government and to “seed” a “social leadership » with a view to the next general elections. With that optimistic spirit, Cuca Gamarra, parliamentary spokesperson for the Popular Group, has risen.

After these two days of debate, he said, “the Spaniards will know that there is an alternative to the cowardice of those who do not even dare to debate.”. “Mr. Sánchez has managed to make his silence give him away, because he does not dare to show his face in this Chamber to recognize that what he is willing to do is sell out Spain in order to obtain a single and exclusive personal interest,” added the number two of the PP.

Feijóo also stressed the same idea in his final argument: “Sánchez has preferred to escape so as not to tell the truth” about the amnesty.. For Gamarra, that is the key to the investiture: the deliberate omission of the debate on amnesty for the crimes of the process. «If the amnesty was good, why has he not included it in his electoral program? If it was convenient, why hasn't he told the Spanish? “Why are you silent?” he prodded.

For Gamarra, the mere possibility of making a clean slate for the Catalan independence movement would be the first step towards “a constitutional mutation” in which it would go from an autonomous State to a plurinational one.. “And that would mean that you are hijacking the will of the nation, because Spain is an autonomous State, not a federal one,” emphasized the Riojan representative.

“In this Parliament there is no progressive majority, what there is is a secessionist minority” that is dragging, in his opinion, the PSOE to “put the rule of law on the back burner, because that is what they are doing”. “Your partners love you for your weakness, and right now you are even weaker,” Gamarra told Sánchez, who returned to his seat during the popular spokesperson's speech.