Control session

Offensive of PP in Congress against pardons 4 days before protests in Colón, Madrid

Calvo reproaches Gamarra for "confronting" Catalonia and Spain

3 min
The PP spokeswoman, Cuca Gamarra, during the session of control of the Spanish government in Congress

MadridPP has moved the offensive against the pardons to political prisoners to Congress on Wednesday with a set of questions for several ministers of the Spanish government. This occurred 4 days before the protests in Colón, Madrid, on Sunday, where some state leaders will be in attendance, but not many regional leaders. The conservative president, Pablo Casado, was accompanied on Tuesday by the Galician president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who, despite defending the mobilization, will not be attending. Neither will the Andalusian president Juanma Moreno Bonilla.

PP deputies have used all its question time in Congress to focus on the Catalan issue, in particular with the face to face between the spokeswoman, Cuca Gamarra, and the first vice president, Carmen Calvo. "The pardons will mean that the convicted will return to criminality. Will they also give in to the amnesty? Why accept, as an interlocutor, a sedition conviction?", asked Gamarra, in relation to the letter from the leader of ERC, Oriol Junqueras, which the Moncloa has described as "a very important gesture". Calvo has accused PP of "confronting" Catalonia and Spain and has challenged them to collect signatures against pardons also in Catalonia, after the Catalan leadership has chosen not to put up stalls in the street and instead prioritize the initiative online.

The Minister of Justice, Juan Carlos Campo, has also been questioned by Gamarra. Beyond pointing out the constitutionality of the pardon and defending that the will of PSOE and Unidas Podemos government is to "restore coexistence" in Catalonia, he has not made any significant advancements. In response to the leader of Ciudadanos, Inés Arrimadas, Campo has warned that he would not get into the details of a measure that has not yet been taken.

PP has heavily supported opposition to the pardon with the collection of signatures and the parliamentary offensive - in Congress and in the municipalities with motions that seek to portray PSOE - but with the demonstration in Colón, certain fissures have been spotted. PP has attempted to appease the noise about the absence of Feijóo, Mañueco and Moreno warning that in the autonomous communities, the respective territorial directions have also been involved with the collection of signatures. In addition, sources close to PP emphasize that it is not a convener of the demonstration, but that it adheres to the protest as it will do on Friday to the one organized by Ciudadanos in Barcelona. In Colón, the president of the Catalan PP, Alejandro Fernandez, will be present, as SER Catalunya has announced and ARA has later confirmed.

Transfer of the vote to PP

In PP, there is a strong conviction that the pardon supposes a cost for Pedro Sánchez. Sources of the conservative direction summarize it in this way: "If you ask in the street, "Do you agree with pardoning Oriol Junqueras? The answer is no". They point out that the internal polls available to PP draw an important transfer of vote from PSOE to the Popular Party, as several polls published in recent days have pointed out. In the engine room of PP, they consider that "Calvo has been very nervous during the parliamentary session".

In the absence of Sánchez, who is traveling to Argentina, Calvo has opened the session by charging ahead against the "disaster" of the party that governed when the events of the Catalan independence bid took place. "We are trying to solve it in a dignified way," she said in relation to the pardons. She also stressed that Colón is the expression of the "impotence" of those who "have no way out" of the Catalan conflict. Sunday's photographs will be, again, that of February 2019, with the difference being that Albert Rivera's place is now occupied by Arrimadas. The Spanish government knows there is no point in trying to convince Ciudadanos, but constantly demands PP not to follow in the footsteps of Vox. This Wednesday, the third vice president, Yolanda Diaz, has jabbed at the "merger" between the party of Casado and that of Santiago Abascal.

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