The celebration of 8-M in Spain comes at the moment of greatest tension between the two members of the coalition government for a law that has to do precisely with discrimination against women: the law of only yes is yes. What things are. PSOE and Unidas Podemos have been unable to reach an agreement to reform this law and the Socialists have taken the middle path and have relied on PP, Vox, Cs, PNV and PDECat, among others, to amend the mess that has led to the release and reduced sentences of many sexual offenders.
It is not a happy day for the Government. This division in this election year is not the best message for leftist voters. The photo of Dani Duch that appears today in our Politics section with the socialist deputies Patxi López and Andrea Fernández embracing while in the background the ministers Irene Montero and Ione Belarra appear sad in their seats is an image that only benefits the opposition.
As Pedro Vallín has well explained these days, the two partners of the Government have wasted the last three weeks without being able to even sit down and talk to find a solution to the conflict. Pedro Sánchez took the bull by the horns when he learned of the trickle of sexual offenders who benefited from the norm, and demanded the reform of the law. The Ministry of Equality flatly refused.
Faced with the dilemma, Sánchez preferred to put the general interest first and correct the effects that the law was generating, even at the cost of the confrontation within the Executive and the wear and tear on public opinion. "I cannot accept a law like this in a government that I preside over", he has repeated these days to those who posed the dilemma. That for this he had to have the votes of the PP or Vox was secondary.
We will see to what extent this crisis will end here or spread to other legislative fronts. Two and a half months from the municipal elections and nine from the general ones, this division on the left is not the best news for socialists and podemites.
