In the final stretch of the parliamentary processing of the Amnesty Law, the protest in the street has lost steam this Saturday. Whether due to the unpleasant weather in Madrid (intense cold and intermittent rain) or due to fatigue, the concentration in the central Plaza de Cibeles has not been as successful as its predecessors, those of January 21 and November 18. If then 31,000 and 170,0000 people attended respectively, according to the Government Delegation, this time the figure has remained at 15,000, according to the same source.
It was the first time that the Popular Party and Vox demonstrated together after the distancing of the Galician campaign, and the two main political forces on the right have exhibited their differences. “What is surprising is that the PP is here today and on Wednesday it is in Brussels with [Félix] Bolaños,” Abascal said upon his arrival. He was alluding to the negotiation that the Minister of Justice and the Popular Deputy Secretary Esteban González Pons are holding in the community capital for the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), paralyzed for more than five years. “I don’t know if Mr. Pons will be here today or if he is already taking the plane to Brussels,” he added ironically. Abascal has accused the Popular Party of practicing a “permanent scam” on their voters, “which all it does is create confusion,” and has demanded that they “cease all contacts with the socialist mafia here and in Brussels.” “As far as Vox depends,” he added, “there will be no truce or peace for this evil government.”
After once again calling on the PP to refuse to process the Amnesty Law at the Senate Table, where it has an absolute majority – a measure that the popular people rule out as illegal and ineffective -, Abascal has referred to former president José María Aznar, who urged that everything “who can do [algo para frenar la amnistía] Do it”. “That [bloquearla en la Cámara Alta] This is what the PP can do,” he remarked.
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Jaime Villanueva
Upon his arrival at the rally, the ultra leader was received like a rock star, with applause, selfies and handshakes. The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who did attend the previous call, has not appeared. Génova explained that Feijóo was in Córdoba, in a two-day meeting with the territorial barons of the party, and has chosen to send a delegation headed by the popular spokesperson in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, and three deputy secretaries: Esther Muñoz, Juan Bravo and Noelia Núñez.
The PP MEP, who has remained in the background and has avoided hand-to-hand combat with Abascal, has limited herself to commenting on her party’s actions against the Government. “The Popular Group is Pedro Sánchez’s nightmare in Europe,” he boasted, in a rivalry to see who does the most against the Executive in which the Ciudadanos MEPs, Adrián Vázquez and Jordi Cañas, have also entered, who have announced that they will ask the European Commission to open an infringement procedure against Spain.
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The EU flags with the acronyms of the EPP (European People’s Party) identified the sector of the public closest to Feijóo, while other protesters chanted “only Vox is left!”, the motto with which the ultras reproach their supposed softness towards the popular.
Parading through the speakers’ gallery were, among others, the lawyer and former prosecutor of the National Court Ignacio Gordillo – who has praised the recent decision of the Supreme Court to prosecute former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont for terrorism and has expressed his conviction that the judges will overthrow the case. amnesty—or the spokesperson for the Jucil civil guards association, Agustín Leal. He provoked applause when he mentioned the two agents murdered with a drug boat in Barbate (Cádiz), and assured that Spain, “without the Civil Guard, would be Chávez’s Venezuela.” It was not the first allusion to the Chavista regime: before him, the student of Venezuelan origin Diego Alejandro Yáñez Segnalini, president of Libertad sin Ira, an organization very active in rallies in front of the PSOE headquarters on Ferraz Street, spoke.
But the biggest ovation has gone to the founder of Vox and former president of the Catalan PP Alejo Vidal-Quadras, who suffered an attack on November 9. “First of all, allow me to give you some news that I hope will satisfy you: I am alive,” he began his speech, covered with a cap and with his voice still very weak. After blaming his assassination attempt on “hitmen sent by a theocratic, misogynistic, totalitarian and terrorist regime”, alluding to Iran, he assured that Spain is experiencing “a dark period” in which it faces an “existential threat”. To confront him, he has asked for “a real alternative” and not a mere “alternation”, endorsing the argument that Abascal uses to demand a PP pact with his party throughout Spain that Feijóo avoids. While the chords of the national anthem were playing, the rain has accelerated the dispersion of the public.
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