Sánchez rearms the majority of the Government the day that Feijóo asks his partners for a motion of censure

This Thursday, the coalition government went from once again skirting the precipice to celebrating in style a vital parliamentary victory to shore up Pedro Sánchez’s legislature. While the negotiations were taking place against the clock to balance the numbers of a key fiscal reform for the Budgets, from the National Court the declaration of the ringleader of the ‘Koldo case’ reached Congress as a true political bomb. Businessman Víctor Aldama, imprisoned for corruption, accused the PSOE leadership and senior officials of the Executive of collecting black money. So Alberto Núñez Feijóo came out to solemnly ask for the support of PSOE members for a motion of censure. Barely an hour later, all of these partners supported Sánchez’s Government without fissures.

“I want to thank the parliamentary groups for their effort in negotiating this very important tax reform to have strong public services,” the president celebrated before the press as he left the chamber, where a good number of socialist deputies received him with applause. Previously, the entire PSOE bench had broken out into a loud ovation around María Jesús Montero, the first vice president and Minister of Finance who has led these conversations and who manages to get the next objective of moving forward with the General State Budgets.

The plenary vote on the package of fiscal measures culminated at that time another authentic stress test successfully passed by Pedro Sánchez and his Government. Because after managing to secure the most heterogeneous investiture majority imaginable just a year ago and meeting the milestone of carrying out the amnesty law, the PSOE and Sumar have faced their true legislative touchstone this week: getting partners to agree left, right, nationalist and independentist in the tax policy that the Executive will deploy.

All the sources consulted among the parliamentary groups that support the Government agree that a failure in this Thursday’s vote would have pushed the legislature towards a dead end. And moving it forward, with 178 yeses and 171 noes, now leads to acceleration in the General State Budgets with a negotiation that seems less bent.

Feijóo implores support

Aldama’s statement before the judge was one of the most anticipated milestones for the PP. Those from Feijóo have designed an opposition strategy that, among other issues, involves delegitimizing the origin of Sánchez’s arrival at Moncloa: the fight against corruption. The president promoted a motion of censure in 2018 following the ruling that condemned Mariano Rajoy’s PP for profiting from the Gürtel plot.

The outbreak of the ‘Koldo case’ gave the PP the necessary ammunition not only to attack the PSOE, but to influence the weak parliamentary majority on which the current coalition Government has been founded. Almost since the beginning of Sánchez’s third term, at the end of last year, Feijóo has tempted the president’s parliamentary allies with laws or motions to break the investiture block.

Sometimes it has worked. But never in the capital votes, those that could have overthrown the Government. That is why the PP has ended up criticizing them in public, especially Junts and the PNV. After the elections of June 23, 2023, Feijóo dreamed of the support of the Catalan and/or Basque right for his investiture. It failed and, since then, the level of confrontation with them has been increasing. The parliamentary spokespersons for PP and PNV, Miguel Tellado and Aitor Esteban, usually report their terrible relationship on their social networks.

This Thursday, in time for the midday news, Feijóo appeared before the cameras in one of the rooms of the noble building of Congress, the Palace where the plenary hall is located. Another “statement” without questions from the opposition leader in which he implored the rest of the parliamentary groups to make him president of the Government shortly before the investiture bloc regrouped.

“I do not have the votes to change the Government, but if any of the partners want to end this, they should know that I am available to open a new stage,” Feijóo noted in his statement. The leader of the PP did not mention the “motion of censure”, but it was not necessary.

Feijóo accused Sánchez of having “engaged” in “political, economic and moral corruption.” “We are facing the ‘Sanchez case’, and it is time to act,” he added. “The Government reeks of corruption,” he said. The opposition leader spoke of “bribes, cash commissions, companies benefiting in exchange for money”, of “the Venezuelan vice president on Spanish soil”, of “the president’s wife”, and attributed “silence” to the members of the Government. , especially the vice presidents María Jesús Montero, Yolanda Díaz and Teresa Ribera.

He had specific words about the next vice president of the European Commission. Far from reducing the pressure maintained against Ribera in Brussels, he asked her to “withdraw her candidacy from the European Union because it will taint her,” after Aldama said that he also met with her.

Feijóo acknowledged that, at the moment, no member of the Government or the PSOE is accused. “It will be justice that determines the degree of corruption” of the Executive, he conceded. “But we Spaniards are not going to endure this agony much longer,” he concluded.

The leader of the PP wanted to put a mirror in front of the Sánchez of 2018 and paraphrased his speech in the motion of censure against Rajoy. “What any person with a minimum of decency would do is resign, leave and leave the Spanish people in peace,” he said, explaining: “I’m not saying it, he said it himself.”

To overthrow Rajoy, the help of the PNV was essential, which went from supporting that year’s Budget to supporting the motion in just days. A scenario that at the national headquarters of the PP on Madrid’s Génova Street they believe it is plausible that it could be repeated. “Why do the partners protect him?” he asked.

Shortly after, its general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, challenged the partners again: “They have the ball in their court, let them speak.” But Feijóo’s proposal fell on deaf ears. The majority groups of the investiture did not respond to the leader of the PP. Neither ‘yes’ nor ‘no’. Just silence.

Pedro Sánchez did answer questions from the press. Upon leaving Congress, and questioned by that motion of censure slipped by Feijóo, the president wanted to show his respect to the parliamentary groups and even encouraged the PP to take the step. “The motion is a constitutional instrument, so with the utmost respect, the parliamentary groups are free and autonomous. It would even be a good opportunity for Feijóo to propose an alternative that is not known, because parliamentary weakness belongs to those who are not capable of assembling majorities,” he said after describing Aldama’s accusations as “invented” and just before getting into the car. presidential with the parliamentary majority that supports him in the Government more tied than ever.