Attention, Moncloa; attention, Genoa; Attention, Zarzuela: the dinosaur is still there. Mr. Sánchez repeats that the situation in Catalonia is much better than in 2017, there is no fire in Barcelona, but Puigdemont wants the State to let him repeat the unilateral path towards independence. Attention, magistrates who yesterday inaugurated the judicial year with pomp and apathy: you will have seen the rush and progressive enthusiasm to pass an amnesty law that in some way disavows what you have sentenced in the courts. And attention, public opinion: the Constitution is about to turn 45 years old. It gave us a multitude of rights and freedoms, it gave us the recognition of nationalities, but it was insufficient to solve what already seems to be an eternal territorial problem of this country.
And that problem arises as soon as the first opportunity presents itself. The one in 2023 is, as always, the investiture of the President of the Government. I say “as always” because most of the concessions to nationalisms, now independence movements, were made as payment for his parliamentary support. The advances towards self-government were never the result of a program voted at the polls or of a federal or quasi-federal conception of the State, but rather of the pressure of these minorities, as if support for successive candidates were bought at an auction. That is perhaps the most negative thing about the process: no one managed to draw a model of an autonomous State, everything was built under pressure and, therefore, out of the need of a person or a party. Perhaps we lacked a designer statesman and surely we lacked a sense of Spanish community, and surely there was also plenty of partisanship and what in the United States they call “ethnonationalism.”
What is happening these days is the result of these deficiencies and excesses, the independence movement taking advantage of an unrepeatable moment and the electoral needs of the parties. Let us add that, at the same time that the progressive bloc is being rebuilt, the right unites even more, the PP gives in to Vox in Murcia, Feijóo and Abascal speak, take photographs together and, to general surprise, the leader of Vox is willing to support a PSOE-PP coalition to avoid independent power. The territorial issue thus becomes one more factor, and the most sensitive, to aggravate bloc politics. We'll see if it is the biggest obstacle to reaching the State pact that Puigdemont invokes, Urkullu suggests in the form of a “constitutional convention” and Feijóo claims.
The worst thing perhaps is that this bloc policy is being transferred to society and is noticeable in private conversations. More and more tasteless and intolerant tones are heard. Those opinions that identify dialogue with Junts or Puigdemont with surrender or humiliation of the State are gaining ground. Every day the testimonies against Yolanda Díaz are more fierce for having "legitimized" a fugitive from justice, no matter how much her spokesperson Marta Lois says that "Sumar is an autonomous political force that has its agenda, its program and its way of acting ”. And every day there are or seem to be more scandalized that the future of the Government and the nation depends on the impositions of the tenant of Waterloo.
Apparently, the positions are irreconcilable, although there are beginning to be numerous voices that support dialogue, now that so many are asking for it and the expressions “historical pact” or “historical opportunity” are being used again. Of course that opportunity is there, but we will have to see who takes advantage of it better: Puigdemont, with a boldness that does not correspond to the representative weakness of his party –few deputies, but enough to invest a president–, or Pedro Sánchez, whose credibility is eroded, because he failed to overcome the image of attachment to power and doing whatever it takes to maintain it. And there is always an Alsina who finds a file that shows that today he can say the opposite of what he said a year ago. Or a month.
Moments of maximum intrigue. I take it for granted that there will be an amnesty law, that's why whoever made the law is cheating. I don't quite see how the illegal 1-O referendum is legitimized. It would be a miracle if what was unconstitutional a few days ago becomes constitutional by magic. And I do not rule out that elections will have to be repeated. I believe that the final decision will not be made by Sánchez or Puigdemont: it will be up to Mr. Tezanos and what the CIS says. In Moncloa and Waterloo there is a conviction: elections are not repeated for Feijóo to win.
