For some time now, it has been customary to share a reflection with you on the eve of concluding the current year and always before the networks begin to fill with sophisticated dishes, unbreakable families, and good wishes for a prosperous year 2024.
National politics has for some time become the unbeatable boxing ring in a democracy that, while not perfect nor intended to be, is founded on principles and values that, with counterweights, is weakened and battered by constant and cruel attacks.
The attitude of current leaders entails a change in the perception of "authority." A concept as old as man. Authority is a creation of social human beings to order life in community and prevent chaos. However, we find ourselves embarked on a course in which we witness the constant discrediting of those who are imbued with capacity, command, and order - the police, the judiciary, parents, teachers, etc. Physical or verbal aggressions, insults, lies have been erected as a useful and effective mechanism to make use of free expression, thereby fostering tension. Although, it is a majority opinion that democracy is the best form of government and organization despite its own imperfections.
In this sense, in the statements made by the President of the Government of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, on December 27, among other issues, he highlighted the reprehensible level of insults that the opposition has reached. Demonstrating the democratic demolition that guarantees the political pluralism enshrined in Article 1.1 of our Magna Carta.
In this order of things, as an example, you will remember the statements of Santiago Abascal in Argentina in which he assured "there will be a moment when the people will want to hang Pedro Sánchez by his feet." Or, also, a comment that took place in the investiture of the current President of the Government, and this time, starring Isabel Díaz Ayuso, captured by the cameras yawning, "I like the fruit," later corrected by the ingenious communication team of the President of Madrid. This is the case in which the Spanish proverb is useful to us, "think badly and you will be right."
The casuistry is broad, although with a few we can understand how institutional loyalty and the basic rules of political coexistence, whether or not they are related to our ideology, have disappeared from the daily dental order of political leaders. It is time to assume that criticism is necessary and expected, as it is a way of auditing the actions and behaviors of our public servants who have the constitutional mandate to manage our country. But using and abusing insults and violent dialectical attacks from the institutions themselves detracts credibility from the democratic system and instills in citizens a sense of legitimacy in violence and insecurity in the powers of the State.
Meanwhile, good news is that PSOE and PP agree on the reform of Article 49 of the Constitution to eliminate and seek a substitute for the term "disabled" contained in that precept. It goes without saying that our Constitution, whose 45th anniversary we celebrated in this 2023, has been reformed on two occasions, always and in any case, by mandate of the European Union. I therefore celebrate the agreement between the two main forces in the country to update and improve our charter of rights, duties and freedoms, and I hope that they will place their wills in an understanding to renew the General Council of the Judiciary, which has been expired since 2018. Before it is, once again, the European Union that urges and leads a task of Spanish sovereign effort.
Democracy is the greatest political success achieved by Spain and we should all take care of it against attacks and insults, both by those who are constitutionally ordered to comply with the management of the country and by civil society as a whole, promoting criticism and creating agreements, dialogue, understandings.
From Lanzarote, without coats or scarves, with an enviable temperature, in a territory without comparison, I send you my best wishes for 2024.
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