The investiture partners ask the Government to avoid the fracture by the law of ‘only yes is yes’: "It would sound at the end of the cycle"

The parliamentary allies of the coalition government do not hide their astonishment at the management that PSOE and Unidas Podemos are making of the political crisis of the ‘only yes is yes’ law. The conviction that the law must be reformed to stop the incessant number of sentence reductions for sexual offenders is unanimous among groups such as the PNV, EH Bildu, ERC or Compromís, although they all believe that the unilateral proposal that the PSOE has registered in Congress places the whole of the left before a dead end for the remainder of the legislature.

“The right-wing is using this issue to cause mischief and we see the government falling into that trap,” reflects the EH Bildu deputy, Jon Iñarritu. In the Basque political formation they are convinced that PSOE and Unidas Podemos cannot afford to take the step of breaking the coalition, although they believe that a fracture of the partners in a matter as delicate as that of equality policies could mark the future of the legislature. “We do not believe that it will break, but it could make the environment very rare. It would not be good for the PSOE, nor for Unidas Podemos, nor for the left as a whole,” says Iñarritu.

For the Compromís deputy Joan Baldoví, the scenario that the reform of such an emblematic law goes ahead only with the support of the PP would also mean taking the legislature to the precipice. “Taking it forward with the right is suicidal for the PSOE, for Unidas Podemos and, as a rebound, for the entire left,” says Baldoví, who claims to be surprised by the virulence reached in the confrontation between partners. “I’m not afraid of a rupture because it doesn’t interest anyone, but I am surprised by the unconsciousness of being stoked like this in public instead of selling what we have done well together,” he criticizes before summarizing the moment of the coalition to the Valencian. “She is like a mascletá that doesn’t allow us to listen to the concert of an orchestra that should sound in tune”.

The threat is that the clash between the government parties on account of the sexual freedom law will cloud coexistence in the remainder of the mandate and weigh down the options to carry out pending reforms such as the housing law, pensions or the gag law. Already this Thursday there was a vote to the limit in Congress to approve the animal welfare law after the PSOE and United We Can take their differences on the protection of hunting dogs to the end. It was the confederal group that ended up giving in to the position of the Socialists, saving in extremis the whole of a rule that will exclude dogs used in hunting activities.

The Executive’s allies believe that situations as tense as this can happen from now on due to the proximity of the elections. “I believe that the pre-electoral environment is affecting the coalition government,” says Jon Iñarritu, who thinks that the PSOE has put its “foot on the wall” with some issues that they have located that remain in the face of their electorate. For Baldoví, that proximity to the polls even pervades the public statements of the Executive. “Some ministers seem more interested in reinforcing themselves internally than in thinking about the common, and from the periphery we observe this level of irresponsibility with astonishment,” he points out.

Immersed in the pre-campaign of the Valencian autonomous communities as a candidate for the Generalitat, the Compromís deputy calls on everyone’s “good sense” to cover up the bleeding of the last two weeks as soon as possible. “If there is no quick solution, the environment will be rarefied. We cannot go to the polls with this level of noise or make it so easy for the right. Feijóo has been swimming on his back for ten days and he is doing well until he confuses the Goya with the Oscar”, he reasons, before concluding: “If the PSOE does not agree with Podemos and brings out the reform with the PP, it leaves the legislature very touched. It would sound like the end of the cycle.”

The sensations are identical in the PNV and in ERC. The two most important partners of the Government due to their size in Congress are used to conflicts within the coalition, for which they have been reproached in public and in private on many occasions, but they show special concern after what happened this week for two reasons. : on the one hand, they consider that this law is especially delicate due to all that it implies for the victims. On the other, they fear that in a year of electoral ferment, situations like this will continue to be repeated in the coming months. “We have seen it throughout the legislature, but it has to do with the fact that in this country we lack a coalition culture,” analyzes the Republican spokesman, Gabriel Rufián.

His group was about to distance himself from the Executive this week in voting on the animal welfare law. He kept up the pulse until the last moment to put pressure on the PSOE with the intention of including hunting dogs in the protection of the law. During the defense of his position in the rostrum, the ERC deputy Joan Capdevila i Esteve reproached the Executive for going to Congress without first resolving their differences.

“We have often seen ourselves trapped in a judgment mode, a Solomonic decision. And our role in the dispute between Unidas Podemos and PSOE to see who would take over the story and subject too much to the dictatorship of the spin doctors, those people so clever that they have just forgotten the object of the law. Struggling to show not who kills the law but who we blame for killing the law. The rest of the partners were putting on oxygen, extending deadlines for them to agree, “he lamented.

Rufián is confident that there will finally be an agreement by the law of ‘only yes is yes’ but he asks precisely to lower the noise so that the negotiation takes place on good terms. “We are here to improve the government’s legislative agenda. We are not going to enter into coalition wars. We all know that there is an electoral year, that there are polls, there are issues for which citizens are asked and from there everyone gets nervous,” he said last Tuesday at a press conference in Congress.

The Catalan deputy hopes that the negotiation will take place and that it will end on good terms, but he warns, looking to the future, that if Spanish politics does not advance in that “coalition culture”, the scenario that arises could be difficult, because even if he governs, he predicts, the right will not be able to form a monocolor executive either. In fact, his political formation has also just experienced a coalition break in the Catalan Generalitat with his Junts partners.

The feeling is similar in the PNV, which feels little heard. “The suggestions that we have made from parties like ours, with experience in coalition governments, have been useless”, explain sources from the formation about the “usual trend” that the Government has followed, publicly showing their differences and debating in the media.

The PNV believes that the coalition’s latest fight is one of many that have lived through the legislature, but they are attending this moment with special concern because it is a “delicate and important” matter, which should not be used , they say “to strengthen partisan positions” in a pre-election scenario. “We do not rule out any possibility,” they warn in the jeltzale formation, about whether this crisis could be terminal for the coalition.

“If they want to turn it into an ideological milk between the two, it seems delicate to me because this should not be played with,” said his spokesman, Aitor Esteban, in an interview on ETB on Thursday. “I think it’s a shame and it doesn’t help calm the debate or improve what needs to be improved that the parts of the government are continually attacking each other in the media,” he added. Esteban is especially concerned that the Government will close the legislative agenda due to the electoral process and bury issues such as the CNI law or the law on official secrets.

The spokesman for the Basque group believes that the government is going to open some folders, those that are of most interest to the coalition, but he fears that “very ideological” issues will come out of these folders that could open up more differences. “The one that is going to bring out the most flags now is Podemos, as a way of making itself visible and ideologising the debate,” insisted Esteban, who warned of the political consequences that “exciting spirits” could have in the face of the electoral campaign.

For now, the PNV has made a first gesture towards the PSOE to facilitate the processing of the reform of the ‘only yes is yes’ law. Esteban announced yesterday that his group would vote in favor of the admission of the rule when it reaches the plenary session of Congress and advanced that they welcome the text of the Socialists. “We are in favor of the law, we believe that this criminal aspect was a small percentage, but we do not understand Minister Montero’s stubbornness in saying that there was no error in the law, of course there was,” said the spokesman. In his opinion, and after consulting different experts, the Socialists’ proposal may be good because it maintains consent and because it does not return to the previous model with two different types depending on whether or not there was violence or intimidation.

Más País has the same reproaches about how the two parts of the Government have turned this law into a “workhorse”. “The procedure has been nonsense,” Iñigo Errejón explained at a press conference this week, in which he warned of the damage that this discussion is doing to the feminist movement. “It cannot be a workhorse, it has to stop and it is important enough for the government to agree on a proposal and reduce the noise,” he opined. Looking to the future, he said in statements to the media on Thursday, “in what can be advanced, progress must be made and in what is not, prudence, moderation and agreement.” “We want to be able to have a state debate, not a discussion between parties,” she claimed.

Sources from Más País state that the Government must be “responsible” and bring an “agreement”. The formation believes that both Unidas Podemos and the PSOE are clear that they can count on the investiture bloc, and in particular Errejón’s party, to get out “of the labyrinth” in which they have been locked up with this law.

The future of the legislature and the possibilities of the left for the upcoming electoral cycle will depend, to a large extent, on how the crisis of the ‘only yes is yes’ is settled. The PSOE, in a hurry to close the wound, requested this Friday the urgent processing of its bill, a step that would reduce parliamentary processing times and, therefore, also negotiation.

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