Let's be fair. The Popular Party is not the devil with horns and tail, who comes to drag us all. The Popular Party is a right-wing party, with some sensible and hardworking people and good will to contribute to improving this country, from conservative or very conservative positions.
But it is also true that its ideology, throughout its history and to this day, imposes a quasi-military discipline in decisions, speech and positioning that, although it saves internal confrontations, also generates enormous inconsistencies.
Let us remember, without going any further, the raised hands and the closed defense of oil exploration in the waters of the Canary Islands that the senator and the deputy of the PP for Lanzarote maintained, despite the general social opposition. It is clear that in a scenario of dissent between the interest of the national PP and the Canary benefit, there will be no room for discussion: we lose.
Let's be fair. Unidos Podemos is not the devil with horns and tail, who comes to drag us all. Unidos Podemos is a party born from the logical indignation caused by the crisis and sustained in a speech worked in the offices of communication experts.
Whoever compares Unidos Podemos with the Communist Party with the intention of attacking and discrediting only shows a supine ignorance of our political evolution. Whoever throws the ¡communist! as one throws a stone ignores the enormous dignity and the incomparable effort of sacrifice and flexibility of the leaders of the PCE during the Democratic Transition.
With their dead in memory and their convictions intact, they agreed to share a seat and chamber with politicians imported directly from the Regime, with the aim of contributing to social pacification and the progress of Spain.
Hopefully the leaders of Unidos Podemos would exhibit that same capacity to dialogue and reach agreements in favor of a common benefit. Unfortunately, it does not seem that this is its main virtue.
Let's be fair. We socialists have made mistakes that we have paid very dearly. The first slap of the crisis hit us in the face and forced us to make decisions against ourselves and what we always defended. It happens in the best families: the PP went back on the reform of the Abortion Law and Podemos has become social democratic.
In this scenario, the main political forces present ourselves with our merits, with our values and our trajectory. The Popular Party says it has created thousands of jobs and defends an education law that equates mathematics with religion; Podemos has brought together discontent and despair and handles itself on the sets like a fish in water. And the Socialist Party, despite its mistakes, is the engine of social progress in Spain, the force that has built the Welfare State and has given legal status to the rights of minorities and discriminated groups until not so long ago.
The decision, the vote, the future of our country, is in your hands.
*Cristina Duque, candidate to the Congress of Deputies for the PSOE.
