Marlaska, in the eye of the hurricane due to the strike: the left asks for him to resign and the PP demands "order"

BarcelonaThe general strike this Wednesday makes a full impact on the start of the electoral campaign, which will take place next midnight. The “success” of the mobilization claimed by the PSOE and the parties to its left contrasts with the “failure” attributed to it by the PP and Vox, which speaks of “political” and “preventive” mobilization against the opposition. Right and left, however, have agreed this Thursday to point at the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, for the police deployment carried out during this Wednesday. From the Broad Front to Podemos and ERC, they have asked for his resignation due to the charges against protesters, especially in Madrid, while the PP has demanded “order and security” for the disturbances following the demonstrations and Vox has threatened union action. The minister, however, has opened an investigation into the police action, questioned internally by the socialists themselves, and has ordered that from now on agents should not use tear gas in mobilizations.

The Broad Front candidate for Madrid, Emilio Delgado, was one of the first this morning to demand the dismissal of Marlaska. He demanded it from President Pedro Sánchez through the microphones of SER. The lead candidate criticized that “it is not the first time, nor the second, nor the third” that the police have charged hard against protesters in progressive demonstrations, and he contrasted this with the considerations the police have in far-right demonstrations. “Marlaska should give explanations first and resign later”, added the spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, Verónica Martínez, in statements to the media in Congress, and Compromís has also asked for his resignation because the episode of police violence in the strike, he said, is not an “isolated case”.

Podemos, which already moved forward this Wednesday demanding that Marlaska step down, has denounced “unjustified aggressions and arbitrary identifications” by the police. The party leader, Ione Belarra, left it in writing in a text with which she requested protection from the president of the Spanish lower house, Francina Armengol. The purple party appeals to the role of the socialist as a “guarantor” of “the exercise of the fundamental rights of the citizenry”. “They spend all day saying that the far right will come to take away our rights, and when people go out to defend their rights they beat them with batons”, reproached the PSOE this Wednesday the Podemos candidate, Irene Montero.

The person who is forming a tandem with her in these elections, the ERC candidate, Gabriel Rufián, has described the police officers' actions as “excessive” and has reiterated his call for Marlaska’s resignation, recalling that ERC had already requested it due to the “failure of the gag law”. At the same time, he asked “who is in charge of the police”, convinced that “there is a part of the police power” that goes “against” the Spanish government, but he has not exempted the PSOE from the responsibility for police violence for that reason. “All the files opened against police officers who think they are Chuck Norris end up being archived,” he said.

Faced with all these criticisms, the PSOE is trying to take the hit. The Socialist spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, has admitted that they do not “like” the images of the charges from this Wednesday, and he has clung to the investigation ordered by Marlaska at the Interior Ministry. “The minister has requested and demanded an investigation and, following it, the decisions that need to be taken will be adopted, but, of course, we are not considering the resignation,” he said. Socialist sources go one step further and consider that what happened with the charges “cannot be tolerated” and that they even share the criticisms of the parties to the left of the PSOE. From within the Spanish government itself, the Sumar minister Ernest Urtasun has also described the charges as “absolutely disproportionate”.

Abascal: “If we govern, there will be no pickets or subsidized unions”

The PP, meanwhile, is moving in the opposite direction. After pointing out the “failure” of what it considered to be a “political strike”, the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, highlighted this morning the pickets against shops and the disturbances following the mobilizations. “Order and security on the streets must be guaranteed,” she said, establishing the PP as the guarantor of this order. But the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, was even harsher and threatened union action. He has assured that if they reach the government -a scenario that right now could only happen hand in hand with Alberto Núñez Feijóo- there will be “no more pickets” or “subsidized unions”.