There are two certainties about the motion of censure presented by the far-right party in the Congress of Deputies. The first is that it will be debated on Wednesday and Thursday, October 21 and 22, and the second is that it will fail. Therefore, we are going to witness the arm wrestling that the far right proposes to the Populars to see who gets the informal title of leader of the opposition, whether Pablo Casado veered to his right or Santiago Abascal snatching support and votes from the Popular Party. Everything is due to this, to the reduction of the Congress of Deputies to a television set to see who is more than who in the space of the extreme right.
This motion of censure is not presented against the coalition government presided over by Pedro Sánchez, nor against the parties that, in one way or another, give their support in the Congress of Deputies. This motion of censure is presented against the Popular Party, which runs the risk of being cornered for years by the nickname of cowardly little right-winger, or it can take this opportunity to move away from extremism with fascist overtones and relocate itself in the center-right space approved in the European Union. This is what many of us want in order not to give wings to the ghosts of the past.
I know that the proven democrats in the Popular Party - because there are, in case anyone doubts it - are witnessing, with deep concern, both the drift that can be seen in the party's leadership and the confusion that is being caused by the uninhibited offensive of the nostalgic heirs of the Franco dictatorship. The leadership of the Populars has so far been inclined to cover its right flank, forgetting the other, the one that brings it closer to the political center, a circumstance that Ciudadanos is taking advantage of, as the polls seem to confirm.
What is clear is that the leadership of the Popular Party has to make a decision. Apparently, it will not vote in favor of the motion of censure, but that gesture is not enough. Will it vote against or abstain? One thing is not the same as the other, because much more than a simple political gesture is at stake. Perhaps a tepid abstention so as not to run the risk that, by voting against, undisciplined leaks of votes will occur in the popular seats? It is not indifferent, since European conservatives are watching the Popular Party, especially Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has given ample evidence of what to do with Nazis and fascists: isolate them politically and prosecute them criminally.
So this is a good time for the Popular Party of European vocation and committed to freedom, equal opportunities, economic progress and political pluralism to return; the return of the formation that defines itself as a reformist center party and that, from moderation, works for the Spain of encounter, dialogue and consensus; the return of the common home where conservative, liberal and Christian-democratic families of Spanish politics coexist, and that brings together and reflects the most representative ideologies of the Spanish center-right.
This is a good time to break away from the whims that Vox proposes.
Fco. Manuel Fajardo Palarea, PSOE senator for Lanzarote and La Graciosa.
