MadridDuring the last few days we have been focused on the news about Valencia and other communities affected by the DANA, and at first it seemed to us that a relative hiatus was opening in the tensions that characterize the relations between leaders and political parties. It was necessary to put all the focus on the tragedy, and so it has been done. In the citizen field, they have joined forces. Also in certain institutional and administrative areas. But there has been a lack of generosity and a different overall vision in the highest spheres of politics. In parallel with the priority attention to the catastrophe and its enormous consequences in terms of loss of life and material damage, many other things have happened that in another context would have occupied large spaces, and which in these conditions have logically remained in the background
The Spanish government has prioritized the mobilization of all kinds of means to assist the victims, leaving a special role in the hands of the president of the Valencian Community, Carlos Mazón (PP). However, even in these circumstances controversies have quickly re-emerged, for example over how and when the population was warned, who has the duty to do so, and why there were delays in communicating the risks . Months before, an alert in Madrid was criticized because it had alarmed the population supposedly without need, because the worst perspectives that existed about atmospheric alterations were not confirmed.
There was a moment of detente when Mazón accompanied the president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez – whom he called “beloved” – in the visit to affected points, after making a similar journey with the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo But the two visitors did not agree, and at no time did we see them together to try to stage the idea of a shared effort, as King Felipe VI was asking for in those same hours. A fact that once again highlights the insurmountable distance that separates Sánchez and Feijóo. The president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said that she did not want to go to Moncloa, when she was summoned by the Spanish government, because she could not be seen shaking hands with the socialist leader. They should rethink all of this, because there are situations that call for restraint and to put the interests of the community above individual conveniences and preferences.
It is not a question of asking Sánchez and Feijóo to do the paperwork for a photo pose, but that they know how to transmit a message of trust to the citizens. One governs and the other possibly will for the indeterminate future, if his party continues to bet on his leadership. It is reason enough to ask them for this minimal effort of temporary harmony. Instead, we’ve had days where the focus of debate has been on the powers of one administration or the other while rescue teams scramble to find survivors or recover people’s bodies swept away by the waters and buried by the mud.
It is clear that it must be examined whether the alert services acted diligently. But there is time and opportunity for everything. What you need to know is to manage your priorities with sensitivity. Communication between the government and the opposition cannot depend on the temperature of the personal relations between the top leaders of the parties. One has to ask what is the message that is transferred to the population with a conception and practice of politics that makes everything revolve around the search for wearing down the adversary. The PP has not reached the most correct conclusions from past, but still very recent experiences, such as those of the pandemic and the thousands of victims it caused.
The Pandemic Precedent
At that time, with hundreds of deaths every day, a campaign was launched about the ineffectiveness of the Spanish government to prevent the spread of the virus. I remember going out every morning to buy newspapers, taking advantage of the decrees on the state of alarm that allowed newsstands to open. In front of what he had as usual, hanging from a balcony, there was a sheet on which the tenant of the house had written “Sánchez go now“. The socialist leader had been sworn in as president shortly before, and together with the sociological right, the opposition was already calling for his resignation. It was Vox, the formation that brought the decrees against the state of alarm to the Constitutional Court. Santiago Abascal’s party got the guarantees body to consider by six votes to five that fundamental rights of citizens had been violated. The court decided that in order to deal with the pandemic, the declaration of the state of emergency should have been approved. And Pablo Casado, who then led the PP, celebrated the resolution, when he had supported the first three extensions of the decree, had abstained from the fourth and had voted against the following two.
There is a lot of talk about the depoliticization of justice, but the PP took advantage of the controversy over the state of emergency and the pandemic as elements of the deterioration of the government. And the same with the more than five years without renewing the Council of the Judiciary, or in its strategy to deal with the processing and application of the amnesty law. The popular ones have wasted a lot of ammunition to bring down Pedro Sánchez, and have always encountered the disadvantage of Vox’s competition on the one hand and the lack of allies on the other.
Now Feijóo’s performance in the first days after the DANA tragedy has involved the same mistake. I understand that he was outraged because a plenary session that had been suspended in Congress, and that had prevented questions to the government, did continue to approve the decree law on the new board of directors of RTVE. But this itself again highlights the weakness of the popular, because what the PSOE has achieved with the pact to renew this council is to strengthen alliances with its investiture partners. It will be said that it is an agreement of convenience. And you can answer yes, like everyone else. Now, as an unprecedented fact, the search these days of the office and mobile devices of the Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz. It was requested by Alberto González Amador, Ayuso’s partner and investigated for tax fraud. Not even Cristiano Ronaldo achieved anything similar when the Treasury charged him with the same offences.
