After elections, those of July 23, in which the demoscopic gurus failed miserably. After a few months of uncertainty about the possible alliances of the two candidates with options. After the failed investiture attempt of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, only supported by PP, Vox, CC and UPN. After arduous negotiations with Catalan and Basque nationalists. After street pressures in recent weeks, largely led by the extreme right. And, especially, after other pressures, no less, from different factual media, economic or functional powers. After all that, Pedro Sánchez managed to renew at the head of the Presidency of the State Government with a comfortable absolute majority of 179 seats.
It can be pointed out that Feijóo began to lose his opportunity to reach the Presidency not now, but after the regional and municipal elections of May 28. For Sánchez, the advance of the general elections was decisive because it allowed visualizing the PP-Vox pacts and their profound reactionary content. The formation of regional and local governments of the PP with the support of Vox or with the direct presence of the extreme right in their executives or in the presidencies of their parliaments confirmed what had already happened previously in Andalusia or Castilla y León. Enabling the ultra-right to bring its reactionary anti-feminist, racist, xenophobic, homophobic and Climate Crisis denialist agenda to numerous institutions.
Progressive mobilization
This visibility of the danger that the institutional presence of Vox poses to freedoms and civil rights produced a broad reaction at the polls in the general elections held in July. With an important progressive mobilization in which the vote of women was key to prevent the triumph of that PP-Vox alliance at the state level. And, also, the relevance that territorial parties have, especially in Euskadi and Catalonia. In addition, the radical and rancid Spanishness of Vox, its threats to end the autonomous state or to outlaw nationalist parties, left the PP with no way out. Relying on Vox to reach La Moncloa prevented them from expanding their alliance framework, limited to the two seats of conservative regionalism (UPN and CC). Insufficient, as confirmed, to achieve investiture.
Appealing, as Feijóo does, to the condition of the PP as the "most voted party" means not recognizing that in the Spanish parliamentary system the Government is presided over by whoever has sufficient support in Congress. And it also implies enormous hypocrisy after what happened in several communities and town councils where conservatives govern without being the most voted; a situation that after the elections of May 28 occurred in Extremadura or in cities such as Valladolid, Burgos or Santa Cruz de Tenerife (where they gave the government to CC), but that previously also occurred in Andalusia or the Community of Madrid when Bonilla and Ayuso came to power. In the Canary Islands, likewise, the PP is part of its Executive after agreeing with CC against the most voted PSOE, which is absolutely legitimate.
In the investiture debate, Sánchez defended a program with a set of progressive commitments against the reactionary proposal of the right and the ultras. From Nueva Canarias-Bloque Canarista (NC-bc) we share many of its proposals in terms of employment, digitization, taxation of large fortunes, fight against the Climate Crisis, feminism or social protection and public services. As well as the condemnation of the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli army in Gaza and the search for solutions that guarantee a just peace in the region, supporting the recognition of the Palestinian State.
Canarian singularities
Also to the need to articulate a territorial model that must recognize the diversity of the State. There were few references to the latter in the debate. Except for Catalonia and Euskadi, of course. In the Spanish State we are faced with a plurinational reality in which the Canary Islands is one of the communities with the greatest singularities: historical, geographical, economic or fiscal; also recognized by the European Union (EU) in its condition as an outermost region (OR). The Canary Islands is neither more nor less than the so-called historical communities.
In the investiture debate, the PSOE-CC agreement was barely noticeable, which is plagued with generalities, lacks obligations, a financial sheet and a legislative calendar, and does not contribute anything to the rights that the Canary Islands had already conquered in its relationship with the State. However, one of the few new agreements between PSOE and CC is the distribution, with political criteria, of the positions of Radio Televisión Española in the Canary Islands; similar to the one that CC had established with the PP in its support for Feijóo. A haggling with the public media that is absolutely regrettable.
In addition, we miss a more committed position with migratory phenomena, with the need to pass a law that allows the distribution of minors among all the communities. Sánchez only made references to the road agreement, the transfers of Coasts, the quota of renewable energies and the 100 million euros for La Palma; all of them issues that were achieved in the last legislature, nothing new. Feijóo, for his part, completely forgot about the Islands.
There are several issues that concern me. Among them, the condonation of debt to the territories, absent from the CC-PSOE agreement. It is true that progress has been made by making it extensible to all the communities and, also, by recognizing that it does not only refer to the one they maintain with the Autonomous Liquidity Fund (FLA), thus including the one that the nationalities and regions have with financial entities. But it remains to be clarified with what methodology the debt write-off is carried out. From NC-bc we defend that a per capita criterion should be applied, as it is fairer. If Catalonia is given a write-off of 16,000 million euros, that of the Canary Islands should be 4,400 million.
I am also concerned about the new model of autonomous financing, another of the commitments of the current president. The irresponsibility of the current Canarian conservative Government, whose first urgent measures have been to reduce taxes for the richest (proposing, in addition, to pay only 50% of the Personal Income Tax in the Canary Islands regardless of the income received), puts us in a bad position at the start of a debate in which fiscal co-responsibility is going to be decisive.
Amnesty
On the other hand, as expected, the amnesty occupied a significant space in the debate, starring its most tense moments. The government program had to be, necessarily, agreed between different forces; and it was logical that the Catalan independentists, key in the vote, introduced this sensitive issue. An amnesty for the people involved in the Procés that was not in the initial intentions of the PSOE nor was it in its electoral program. But, as Sánchez pointed out, he had no choice but to "make virtue of necessity" to get the support that would guarantee his investiture. A measure that will have to overcome legal interpretations and the evaluation of the Constitutional Court. The Government will have to explain very well to society that it is an instrument for understanding and coexistence in Catalonia and in the State. That is what politics is for, to solve messes no matter how difficult and complex they may seem, not to leave problems entrenched and without any way out.
Now a very complex legislature opens, marked by the return of fiscal rules, which will affect budgets, as well as by international war conflicts or the increase in the price of money. And in which the new model of autonomous financing has to be addressed, which requires not easy agreements. As well as facing relevant economic, social and environmental challenges. It is up to a Government supported by a transversal majority, in the ideological and in its territorial vision of the State. A majority that is obliged to manage its differences well; and that will have in front of it a hard opposition in which, for the moment, the extreme right is setting the pace for a conservative right in which many of its leaders have been assuming its most trumpist and reactionary discourse, more delegitimizing of the institutions and of greater contempt and dehumanization towards political adversaries. It will not be, therefore, easy the political period that has just opened with the re-election of Pedro Sánchez.
