Aznar warns the PP that Junts cannot be counted on to bring down Sánchez

MadridAlthough José María Aznar proclaimed the famous "whoever can, let them do it" against Pedro Sánchez, the former Spanish president is not pressuring Alberto Núñez Feijóo to register a motion of no confidence, unlike Vox. The former PP leader has warned his party that Junts cannot be counted on to bring down the head of the executive, no matter how much Carles Puigdemont's party gives their occasional supportto parliamentary initiatives, of a symbolic nature, against Sánchez's continuity. "Congress cannot manage a constructive no-confidence motion", lamented Aznar, who attributed it to the fact that the allies of the socialist leader's investiture want "to be able to consummate their plundering of the State". The former Spanish president and leader of the PP criticized that Moncloa has ended up being "a Madrid delegation of secessionism".

Aznar made this reflection at a press breakfast this Wednesday in which he intervened to present the spokesperson for the PP in Congress, Ester Muñoz, who has also confirmed what Feijóo repeats to the point of boredom: that there are currently no possibilities to build a real majority against Sánchez and, therefore, to present a successful motion of no confidence. Muñoz stated that she sees a hypothetical agreement with Junts as "difficult"despite the rapprochement in recent weeks. From the popular leadership they note a coincidence with the Junters on economic matters, but at the same time irreconcilable differences on core issues about the conception of Spain. Muñoz has emphasized that the PP has "the State, the Constitution and the law" as red lines and the popular party underlines that it is a matter they have always been clear about beyond the words of the current president of the FAES Foundation.

In fact, the spokesperson for the PP, Borja Sémper, already made it clear this Monday at a press conference that the PP has no intention of reconsidering its position on issues essential for Junts, such as amnesty, in order to seduce them. It is precisely this demand from Puigdemont's party that Aznar has focused on, denouncing the "Faustian pact [of Sánchez with independence] whereby the soul of the State, that is, national cohesion, is handed over" in exchange for "mediated power". In this regard, the former Spanish president has stressed that the "majority capable of overthrowing Sánchez" will either "be national or it will not be". Aznar has called for the construction of "a broad, centered majority with the capacity to rally the right and the left".

In full negotiation with Vox in Andalusia, one of the last bastions of the PP's centrist soul, Aznar has insisted that support must be gathered from both sides of the political board with a "reconstructive purpose of historical dimension". According to the former president, what is important about the upcoming Spanish elections "is not when they are called" but understanding that they are "the most important in all of recent democratic history". "We are not playing for a change of government but for a change of system," he stressed, and warned that "the constitutional nation and equality before the law" are at stake. Shortly after, the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, endorsed Aznar's recipe for the PP and advocated for a majority that "allows us to free ourselves from the constant separatist threat" and avoids "being held captive by minority dictatorships".

The 'cleaning law'

Aznar has overlooked the controversy that Feijóo has generated this week for having joined Vox in preparing the ground to question the results of the next Spanish elections. Ester Muñoz, who referred to it in her intervention this Wednesday, argued that "the PP has always defended that all descendants [of exiles] can recover their nationality". However, the PP spokesperson in Congress has questioned the way in which the Spanish government is implementing the so-called law of the clean ones. Muñoz referred to an instruction from 2022 from the Directorate General of Legal Security and Public Faith, headed at the time by Sofía Puente, sister of the current Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente.

According to the PP, this document "reinterpreted" the original law to go further, which has given the Spanish government the power to act with "a system of absolute opacity" when granting nationality and, therefore, the right to vote to up to 2.5 million people. Is this the supposed "electoral engineering" that former Madrid president Esperanza Aguirre also denounced at the breakfast entrance, in line with what her successor, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, also does.

Also this Wednesday in an informative meeting, Ayuso has asked for "observers" of the nationalization process and has assured that she will go "to the necessary instances" to demand "transparency" and "rigor". The leader of the Madrid PP has wondered if Sánchez is trying to "nationalize socialists".