The vast majority of the militancy and the socialist leadership, both agree, put before all the difficulties and risks of the negotiation with Catalan independence a higher goal: "That Pedro Sánchez continues to be president of Spain". Even despite the admonitions of former leaders such as Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra. A veteran socialist, with almost as many three-year terms as them in the PSOE, certifies it like this: "Socialist militancy has only one ideology, and that is not to govern the PP".
That Sánchez continue to be president, with the "main obligation to generate a climate of coexistence and harmony" in Catalonia and Spain, was the demand expressed yesterday by Andalusian socialism, with all the enthusiasm of its militancy. The leader of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas, and the leader of the Sevillian Socialists, Javier Fernández, claimed this at the rally they held in La Rinconada, in front of 3,000 supporters, to make fun of Sánchez.
"Total mobilization of support for the president", they celebrated in Ferraz. The Andalusian PSOE is going through its most critical moments, due to the great loss of institutional power they have suffered in the last municipal and regional elections. But it remains the backbone of the party, the largest federation. And their support is key so that Sánchez can successfully complete, without internal turbulence, the complex negotiation with Junts and ERC to ensure an absolute majority that endorses his investiture. Support already expressed, in his last meetings and interventions, by the Catalan Socialists of Salvador Illa, the Galicians of Valentín González Formoso, the Asturians of Adrián Barbón... Sánchez has the support of the vast majority of territorial leaders, with the exceptions of the Castilian-Mancheque Emiliano García-Page and the Aragonese Javier Lambán.
"I have more desire than ever, more strength than ever and more arguments than ever for four more years of progressive government, social progress, rights, coexistence and harmony!", cried Sánchez yesterday. And he received the express and enthusiastic support of Andalusian socialism, in the face of the negotiations he will now lead with Catalan independence.
The leader of the PSOE contrasted the failed investiture of Núñez Feijóo, certified the day before in Congress, with which he himself is ready to face. Sánchez criticized that the leader of the PP alleged that he could be president, but that he did not want to. "He is so used to lying to everyone, that he lies to himself," he told her. "The socialists do want, and we will work for a real investiture, not a fake one, so that there is a progressive government!", he promised.
On the complex ongoing negotiation with Junts and Esquerra, with a possible amnesty for those accused of the process under discussion, but which he did not mention at any time, Sánchez did pedagogy among his own ranks, to refute the eternal "mantra" of the right "Spain is not broken and the Constitution is not broken", he defended. When Spain was on the verge of breaking up, he recalled, it was with the PP government and the unilateral declaration of independence in Catalonia. "Today in Spain there is more coexistence and more harmony thanks to the dialogue of the progressive coalition government", he assured. And he insisted that, after the "theatre" of Feijóo's investiture, with which, in his opinion, he was only looking to "entrench himself as leader of the PP", he will now leave his skin behind and devote himself "body and soul ” to get his re-election. "There will be no government with a President Feijóo or a Vice President Abascal. There will be a progressive government!” he promised.
This is the objective of the PSOE, with which Andalusian socialism was successful. The Sevillian leader, Javier Fernández, asked the militancy for "loyalty and respect" to Sánchez, as general secretary elected by the grassroots, in implicit reply to the criticisms of Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra. "You can disagree, but respect and consideration for the general secretary can never be lost", he warned them. Because he assured that there are no first-class or second-class militants in the PSOE: "We are all equal".
And requested by the Sevillian María Jesús Montero, deputy general secretary of the PSOE, the veteran Luis Yáñez – who promoted with González and Guerra the renewal of the PSOE in 1974, and now defends Sánchez in front of his old comrades – received an ovation.
