A government cannot lose authority. When that happens, your days may be numbered. Under this prism it is necessary to observe what happened yesterday at the festival of Dos de Mayo, the day of the Community of Madrid.
The story, already shredded by all the media, is well known. The protocol services of the Community of Madrid prevented the passage of the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, when he tried to access the tribune of authorities that presides over the Dos de Mayo parade. We are talking about a celebration that over the years the Popular Party has been characterizing as if it were an alternative national holiday, with a military parade included. The party of the right while the president of the Government is booed annually in the vicinity of the grandstand of the Twelfth of October parade, an area where military relatives gather. ideological struggle. Agitation and propaganda. Culture war, as they say now.
Never before had a minister of the Government of Spain been prevented from accessing an act of these characteristics. In previous editions, when the Popular Party ruled Spain, the presence on the rostrum of Vice President Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría was common, accompanying the Minister of Defense, María Dolores de Cospedal, despite the terrible relationship between the two. They were scenes of institutional normality. A normality that today is broken. If yesterday a minister had been prevented from entering an official act in Catalonia or the Basque Country, the screams would be heard even in the plains of Ukraine. (The Minister of the Presidency participated a few days ago in an act of the Basque Government in Gernika on the occasion of the 86th anniversary of the bombing of Nazi aircraft).
Yesterday a very calculated confrontation took place in Madrid on the notion of authority. It is striking that the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, present in the gallery by virtue of her position –a military parade was going to take place–, observed undaunted how a fellow Cabinet member was blocked, without saying anything. It was up to her to stop the act until the situation was clarified. It seems that in the Government there are two types of ministers: those who are in the fight and those who observe it.
Advised by a court advisor who conceives the political struggle as a combat without limits, Isabel Díaz Ayuso has said that I am the authority before all of Spain. "Political incorrectness" versus "progressive dictatorship." This is the framework, as the Valencian political scientist Anna López recalled yesterday in the Público newspaper. The adversary becomes the enemy and consequently must be left out of the photo. It is a dynamic present in many countries. Democracies will not die suddenly, but they can slowly rot as gestures of degradation of institutional life accumulate. Something smells like a process in Madrid.
The slogan "illegitimate government" has materialized in Puerta del Sol, launched by the extreme right at the beginning of the legislature and gradually assimilated by the PP. The Government has shown ingenuity and Ayuso has taken another step to seize the Vox electorate. "The authority is me." The message also for Alberto Núñez Feijóo about which cruel articles are already beginning to be published in the conservative press in Madrid. They are stopping believing in him.
