Late yesterday, Sunday, the main leaders of the Government and the PSOE had to silence the instant messaging groups on their mobile terminals because the endless number of notifications was almost saturation. In real time, all of them were commenting on the possible outcome of the meeting of the Junts permanent party, called by Carles Puigdemont on the eve of an appointment in which he is expected to issue a final ruling on the legislature: conviction or acquittal. The Moncloa, despite the noise and contradictory rumors, maintains “optimism.”
Different heavyweights of the Government, consulted by LA RAZÓN, insist on maintaining that there will be no rupture. That what will come out of this reflection will be a kind of “reset”, a “neither yes nor no” as a formula to overcome your crossroads. “A break, but not a break”. In such a way that they gain time with the decision to rethink the relationship, the objectives, the method.
Puigdemont and Nogueras
Based on what the Moncloa spokespersons explain, regarding what Carles Puigdemont will execute today, Junts would give birth to another mouse. The leadership meets today in Perpignan to determine, or at least propose, the breaking of its political support for the Government of Pedro Sánchez, and to submit the decision to its membership for consultation.
Junts has been raising its tone for months: ultimatums, warnings and growing tension from both its spokesperson in Congress, Miriam Nogueras(“the time of ultimatums is over”) as well as from Puigdemont’s own leadership.
The justification is that there is a constant non-compliance with the commitments acquired by the Governmentwhich the two parties, by the way, know that cannot be corrected, although from the socialist side they insist on saying that later it will be seen that there are fruits of the negotiation. If Junts chooses to look for new excuses and maintain conditional support, it will once again erode its credibility among its most demanding bases. And within the party there are more and more leaders who are fully aware of this.
Without a clear positioning, as Moncloa is leaking what will happen, they run the risk of appearing weak or lacking in leadership, just when the theatricalization of the ordago, as they officially say in Moncloa, has already begun. «The new theatricalization of Perpignan». Whatever the outcome, the reality is that the climate increasingly smells like elections in the first half of the year. This is how they see it in the PSOE and also among all their partners, except for Sumar who maintains a complicit silence in the face of the internal crisis they are waging and the need to maintain the seats they occupy in the Council of Ministers.
“Today’s meeting will not result in the final decision to support an instrumental motion of censure to call elections and oust the president,” insists the official Moncloa argument just hours before Puigdemont issues his sentence. That they squeeze them a little more does not matter much because in Moncloa they maintain that there is still time to present, not approve, the Budgetsand what is the BOE worth to them to continue managing, not governing.
In any case, although they try to hide it, Sánchez’s weakness is growing, whatever Puigdemont says today. The Government believes that buying time benefits it, and that we are facing a crisis that is more of a spectacle than a sentence.
The regional elections and Vox
Internally, the resolution of this crisis may also open cracks in the toughest sectors of Juntswho demand that the message not be diluted. While the pragmatists defend the option of continuing negotiating. In another order of things, Vox seems to continue echoing what is best for Sánchez. Yesterday they went ahead to confirm that they will not support an instrumental motion under the conditions that Pugidemont may propose (what has been talked about is placing an independent to call elections).
The PP does not miss the opportunity to indicate that Vox is back to its old ways, and that, although it pretends to fight the independence movement, in reality what it is doing is trying to buy time by thinking more about its party interest than the general interest. Those from Abascal believe that delaying the elections is good for them because time does work in their favor, since the polarization and the increasingly tense speech on the part of Sánchez will serve to continue fattening up their electorate. The regional elections are a test for the management of the popular and Santiago Abascal’s party trusts that governments such as Extremadura, Castilla y León or Andalusia need them.