More pressure. Alberto Núñez Feijóo believes that if the PNV sent to the guillotine Mariano Rajoy due to corruption, he is now running out of time to do the same with Pedro Sanchez.
José Luis Ábalos, Santos Cerdan, Koldo. The brother, the woman. Until now, the government’s narrative, the ‘lawfare’ theses, the scarecrow of the extreme right, the counterparts or, in other words, the increase in the cost of support, kept the partners in the most absolute stillness. Undaunted.
If anything, they have distanced themselves from the scandals in a literary way, never factually. To the frustration of the PP, which has spent exactly two years with the text of a motion of censure instrumental to calling elections drawn up and… kept in a drawer.
But the accusation of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero In the National Court it opens a scenario of dimensions never seen in our country. It is no longer the suspicion of corruption that hangs over a figure of such great importance, but rather, if the indications are true, the scandal would not only affect the Government: it would involve it directly.
In the ranks of the PP, the debate on censorship has been on the table for months. Since the first scandal broke out in 2024. Some sectors have defended from the beginning that Feijóo They have to take a step forward even at the risk of being defeated on the scoreboard. They consider victory to be moral. Political staging above pragmatism.
Others maintain that it is not appropriate to support Sánchez at his worst moment. They argue that why confirm him as president with a large parliamentary majority behind him if the reality is different: he is still incapable of carrying out a rule as basic as the budgets.
The dilemma in the popular ranks has continued with a devilish judicial situation for the Government, yes, but without any firm sentence that upholds an implacable narrative.
Prelude in the Upper House
Now, with the investigation open against Zapatero and the first police reports on the table, Feijóo takes action. He does it in a subtle way, in a fortress that he controls with the absolute majority of his party: the Senate. This is where he has taken a first step. The prelude to the motion of censure, which will come if the partners are up for the job.
According to party sources to LA RAZÓN, the popular group has registered a motion in the Upper House that will be voted on in the Plenary next Wednesday and that, in its last point, urges the Government to: “Act in accordance with the democratic rules to which it is obliged and, therefore, to assume its political responsibilities by putting an end, through the procedures provided for in the Constitution, to the current situation of blockade and thus allowing the formation of a new Government that has the support of a social and parliamentary majority.
In the popular ranks there are those who compare the initiative with that non-legal proposition as a matter of trust that Junts registered in the past and that, after a noisy give and take, it withdrew. The fact is that if one of the two groups that seem most inclined to let Sánchez fall – Junts and PNV – support the text presented by the PP, Feijóo will take good note.
Aware of the political cost that a negotiation with Carles Puigdemont could entail, the popular president is reluctant to pick up the phone or send emissaries. The distrust is total.
There is not much dialogue with the PNV either. The relationship is bad. Feijóo has chosen to address both groups out loud. He constantly remembers that he lacks four votes to undertake an instrumental motion of censure that advances the elections in Spain. It is the only alternative he considers, because he knows it is the only possible one. And today it doesn’t seem very possible either.
Wednesday, trial by fire. The popular spokesperson in the Senate, Alicia Garciaencourages the partners in statements to this newspaper: «Words if they are not accompanied by actions are of no use. And in politics the facts are the votes. Throughout the legislature we have seen how Sánchez and his partners have played the game of confusion in their relationships. “They acted outraged by the corruption, but then they continued to support Sánchez.”. With the Zapatero case, observe the same pattern.
For this reason, it forces the Government’s allies to decide: “With democracy or with Sánchez, with cleanliness or with Sánchez, with honesty or with Sánchez.” The ball is in the partners’ court. They decide.
Tellado’s words
And to warm up the vote in the Senate, the words of Miguel Tellado this Sunday, in Barcelona. The number two of the Popular Party went to the Catalan capital to participate in the Board of Directors of the regional PP, although he gave a monographic speech on corruption in which he spoke of the “rotting” of Sanchismo.
A criticism that he extended to Sánchez’s partners. «They are as responsible as Sánchez and Zapatero. “They are as rotten as the Government they support.”. He hit hard with the intention of changing their minds and finally supporting the motion of censure.