"If you were my father I wouldn't let you do this." It was Alberto Núñez Feijóo's response to Ramón Tamames, when he called him to confirm that Santiago Abascal had proposed him to be the candidate for the presidency of the Government in the motion of censure that he intends to present to end the Government of Pedro Sánchez. The popular leader tried to persuade the former communist deputy of the error that, in his opinion, the initiative entails. But the economist's response was that he would not die peacefully if he did not show up, according to PP sources.
When Tamames called Feijóo last week, the president of the PP already knew about the offer to the former communist leader, because the president of Vox informed the popular leader, in a phone call, that Ramón Tamames was his candidate. The leader of the far-right formation defended that candidacy for coming from the academic world and not having a partisan profile. Feijóo's response was the same as when he told him that he would present the motion, that if he finally presents it, the Popular Group will not vote against it. The leader of the PP had already announced before knowing the name of the veteran economist that the vote of the popular deputies would be abstention.
By the time Tamames called Feijóo, the candidate, still to be officially confirmed, since a meeting between the candidate and Vox is pending, the former communist leader already knew what the PP president thought about the motion to censorship: That it was a mistake and that it only benefited Pedro Sánchez.
I knew this because a few weeks ago, Tamames and Feijóo had met at a meal with members of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, in which they discussed Vox's claim to present a motion of no confidence against Sánchez, although Abascal had not yet offered to Tamames to spearhead the initiative.
According to popular sources, Tamames asked Feijóo for his opinion, in the telephone conversation, to which he replied that it seemed "nonsense." Feijóo tried to persuade Tamames by reminding him of the harshness of the political debate in Congress, especially in a motion of no confidence, in which you have to endure twelve hours, in a parliament that, as he reminded him, is not what it was when he was a deputy because now "15 speak".
"Are you going to endure 12 hours of debate?" the popular leader told Tamames, who in the confidence they have, and reminding him of his age, 89 years, considered the initiative inappropriate: "You can be my father." Feijóo told him, to which Tamames replied, "or your grandfather." "Not my grandfather, but my father. If you were my father, I would not let you do this," Feijóo insisted.
Despite the fact that Tamames transferred a request to Feijóo: "Trust me," he told him, the president of the PP reiterated that he considered the motion of censure an "opportunity for the PSOE", a gift for Pedro Sánchez, "to change the conversation ", at a time that if it is characterized by something it is by the weakness of the Government, by its internal division. "You give him a victory" in the middle of the controversy over the yes is yes," Feijóo told him. But Tamames's response was the same: "Trust me more."
