SPAIN: A demonstration against potential amnesty for those involved in the Catalan independence movement, which led to Spain’s worst political crisis in decades, attracted 40,000 people to Madrid. The issue arose after the July general election when the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party was defeated by the Conservative People’s Party.
Despite its triumph, the PP, led by Alberto Nuñez Feijóo, has a slim chance of winning the congressional vote needed to establish a new government. The PSOE, led by acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, is the clear winner in the numbers.
Sánchez needed to secure the backing of the hardline Catalan Independence Party’s Carles Puigdemont, who left Spain six years ago to avoid arrest for orchestrating the illegitimate movement for independence. Puigdemont has stated that the amnesty to be granted to him and hundreds of other Catalans by the Spanish court for their involvement in the secession effort will be a condition of his support.
Sánchez, who pardoned nine Catalan independence leaders two years ago, has refused to rule anything out. The PP has used amnesty to galvanize its followers and paint the PSOE leader as devoted to holding onto power and loyal to Catalan separatists.
In a speech, Feijóo criticized Sánchez for his lack of moral and political integrity and for undermining Spanish democracy. He claimed that the left saw pardons as coexistence, amnesty as normalisation, and defeat as victory. He stated, “Don’t call us Spaniards stupid because we’re not.”
Feijóo stated that he will preserve Spain as a democracy of free and equal people, even if it means not being prime minister. The People’s Party leader went on to say that whether he becomes prime minister or not, what will remain is a free, equal, and dignified Spain.
Sánchez, who criticized the PP for its “apocalyptic prophecies,” has not made any specific references to an amnesty.
Speaking in Catalonia, he emphasized his commitment to equality and warned that any social, economic, and environmental advancements during his administration would be jeopardized by a PP government that would rely on the far-right Vox party to rule Spain.
The PP, which originally denounced Vox as “a party of fear, of rage, of resentment and revenge,” has since withdrawn its opposition and joined the party in a series of local and regional alliances.
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