"Have you seen what a disgusting army?" The papers of 23-F and Feijóo's blunder

BarcelonaThis week no relevant secrets about the 23-F coup d'état have been revealed, but it has left us with the hilarious phone conversations of Antonio Tejero's wife and a new strategic blunder by Alberto Núñez Feijóo for history. Carmen Díaz Pereira, Tejero's wife, discovered on the night of February 23rd what it feels like to be on the losing side. While half of Spain waits with bated breath to see if they will be rounded up like in 1936, this woman, sensing that the coup was failing, moved heaven and earth to try to get her husband out of the mess he had gotten into for being “a fool” and “an idiot”. “If they've left him like a cigarette butt. For God's sake. It's undignified”, she complains to General Fajardo. It's clear that she considers her husband an idealistic dreamer who has been tricked by some cowardly generals. “So good and so honest. Always with the homeland up, down [...] and all he wants is to end terrorism so that people live comfortably and in peace”, she tells a friend. “Have you seen what a disgusting army?”, she tells another. The friends she speaks to, presumably also military wives, try to encourage her by telling her that her husband is a “hero”, but she is suspicious. She knows, long before her husband does, how it will all end and that he will be a scapegoat. “A wretch” who has been “deceived”. Seen through these conversations, February 23rd becomes a sad Valle-Inclanesque farce. Of course, a farce that could have cost many lives.

The King's Return

But the farce turned into a blunder when Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who had repeatedly downplayed the decision to declassify the 23-F documents, blurted out the idea that Juan Carlos I should return to Spain. Then, the Royal Household responded that if the emeritus wants to return, no problem, but he will also have to move his tax residence. In other words, Feijóo's idea now further calls into question Juan Carlos's figure, as everyone now knows that if he doesn't return, it's because he doesn't want to pay taxes here or have it known how much money he has.

The details

Among the conversations on the night of February 23rd, there is one that could have caused some headaches at the Zarzuela: Tejero's wife and her son received calls from a certain “Doña Sofía”, who sent them hugs and assured them that she was on their side. The monarchy can breathe easy because there is no evidence to suggest that this woman was the queen, as some journalists suspected at first.

Voting errors in Congress are quite frequent. This week, the seat of the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, was the only point in the hemicycle that lit up red in the vote on the decree that included aid for the victims of the tragic train accident in Adamuz. And this despite the fact that Montero is the PSOE candidate in the next Andalusian elections.