The phrase “the PP is the PSOE several years late” has become popular, although in view of the facts the deadlines are increasingly shorter. In record time, the PP has changed the demonstrations against the amnesty and “the coup that struck down the Constitution” for the distribution of judges, RTVE and the Congress and Senate commissions with the socialists.
As fast as it is diligent Feijoo has gone from reaching out to Sánchez before, during and after the 23J campaign to do it to Puigdemont himself, still a fugitive from Justice and candidate for the Catalans for a party that proposes the Balkanization of Spain. Under these conditions Feijoo says that if they reconcile with the law it is possible to start a conversation with Junts. Hair to the sea with coup separatism.
It is not just any statement, so the PP’s plan to demand that the Senate plenary session – while processing the amnesty despite its majority in the Table – take Congress before the TC for approving a norm that is “a covert reform of the Constitution” is not an obstacle to, in the meantime, negotiating with those who have perpetrated it and are going to leave unpunished (sic) “very serious crimes against the heart of the EU.”
In reality, there is no room to reproach Feijoo, whose course is faithful to the history of the PP, that one thing is rhetoric and another is facts. Before reaching out to Sánchez, he said that the socialist will go down in history for putting Spain up for sale and being “the worst president because of his changes of opinion and lies.” However, Feijoo’s stage brings an essential novelty: the ups and downs occur before reaching the Government.
In 1995a year before arriving at Moncloa, Aznar promised that a PP government would never negotiate with ETA. He said it after emerging unharmed from the bomb that the terrorists detonated as his car passed by in Madrid. A year later he authorized 33 transfers of ETA prisoners, in 1998 he referred to them as the “Basque liberation movement” and the next he negotiated a truce.
Of course, his rise to power—so familiar to us now—was not the most edifying either. In 1996 Aznar He needed the votes of the PNV and CIU to govern, which is why handed over education powers to the Catalan Generalitat of Jordi Pujol in the Majestic pact. He also closed an agreement with Arzalluz, who left behind one of those phrases that demolish myths: “I have achieved more from Aznar in 14 days than in 13 years from Felipe González.”
Another of the reforms that fell on deaf ears has to do with the system of election of judges. Both Aznar (1996-2004) and Rajoy (2011-2018) promised to end the socialist politicization of Justice. In 1985 the PSOE had liquidated the separation of powers (“the burial of Montesquieu”, in the words of Alfonso Guerra) that the PP, thanks to the absolute majorities of 2000 and 2011, had the opportunity to repair. None of this happened as the photos show today. González Pons meeting with Bolaños in Brusselsthrough Reynders.
Of course, Rajoy also followed Aznar’s lead in his relationship with ETA. The Galician showed a tough profile when he was leader of the opposition by calling for massive demonstrations against Zapatero’s negotiation with Otegui. But once in power Rajoy accepted the pact, released Bolinaga, meekly assumed the end of the Parot doctrine and refused to publish the minutes of the negotiation with the terrorists..
In the opposition, Rajoy did not give truce to the most ideological laws of Zapaterism, such as that of gay marriage and abortion, with separate appeals before the Constitutional Court. Again, coming to power would change things. The entire party leadership—including the president—buried their own appeal by attending Javier Maroto’s wedding. The repeal of the Aído law did not occur either: the PP used as an alibi that the court – ultimately controlled by itself – delayed the issue for years. In reality, a favorable ruling would have forced Rajoy to fulfill his promise.
The massive tax reduction included in the electoral program with which Rajoy obtained an absolute majority in November 2011 deserves a separate chapter. On the contrary, Cristóbal Montoro promoted a tax increase even greater than that contemplated by the Communist Party. In the following elections, December 2015, the PP assured that, once the crisis was over, it would lower personal income tax, corporate tax and social security contributions. A year later, Rajoy, with Spain already growing at 3%, once again announced a tax increase that affected large companies and special taxes on tobacco, alcoholic beverages and soft drinks. The measure obtained the support of the PSOE.
A decade later the PP has not changed but Spain has, where the two-party system needs other parties to play the carpet. That is why Genoa has just recognized that it will repeal the autonomous laws of historical memory only in those communities where he governs with VOX. In the rest, as in good times, the socialist legacy will be safe.
