Yesterday, with the more or less direct participation of some of the investment partners, the open schism in Ràdio Televisió's board of directors contributed to the tense relations that currently exist between the PSOE and Sumar within the central government Espanyola, whose last extraordinary meeting ended with the dismissals of the interim president, Elena Sánchez, and the content director of the public body, José Pablo López.
To understand the origin of the mess you need to go back a few months. In search of a television format that counters the leadership of the so-called prime time of Pablo Motos, whose program, El Hormiguero (Antena 3), includes a recurring critical talk with the Government chaired by Pedro Sánchez, José Pablo López , maneuvered to sign the comedian and presenter David Broncano, currently at the head of a midnight program on Movistar.
The negotiations to attract the driver of a booming format involved figures that, under the argument that they broke RTVE's salary balance, were questioned by Elena Sánchez, proposed at the time by the Socialist Party. And after the abstention of the director of the entity in several ordinary meetings, the decision was transferred to an extraordinary council scheduled for yesterday, in which the alignment of the five councilors appointed in the previous legislature by the PSOE (two ), United We Can (two) and the PNB (one) was inexcusable for doubling the three positions appointed by the PP and Elena Sánchez himself, reluctant to sign the operation.
At this point, the PSOE contacted Unides Podemos. In return, the purple party demanded the inclusion of some of its talk shows in the chain's current affairs programs and only guaranteed the favorable vote of one of the councilors it placed on the RTVE board, the Gipuzkoa Roberto Lakidain, with the argument that the second, José Manuel Martín Medem, is under the umbrella of Sumar, since he belongs to the PCE, currently in coalition with Yolanda Díaz.
Seeing that, a priori, the accounts were coming out, the PSOE accepted it, as evidenced by the fact that the former second vice-president of the Spanish Government Pablo Iglesias premiered on Monday as a talk show host on the program Mañaneros.
But what they didn't count on in Ferraz was that, when the time came for the vote, Medem would line up with the director of the agency and the three councilors of the PP to overturn the signing of Broncano by five votes against four.
Given the decline, and by virtue of the majority they had, Lakidain himself proposed voting for the dismissal of Sánchez due to the loss of confidence. When this second vote was opened, Medem again went for free and voted against it. The PNB councilor chose to abstain. And the PP, in view of the opportunity to widen the open schism, voted with the PSOE and Unides Podemos.
The move, filtered live by one of those present, was attended by the stunned PSOE, which saw itself obliged to react during the subsequent press conference. And it was the spokeswoman, Pilar Alegría, who tried to minimize the damage by emphasizing that what is "truly fundamental and important" is to preserve the independence of the entity as a "quality public service that it is".
Sumar, for his part, evaded all responsibility and advocated for the "independence" and "plurality" of RTVE, of which, sources from the confederal space pointed out, they believe that it is necessary to "renew" the Council of ' Administration to provide it with "the representativeness that corresponds to the will of the people in this new political cycle".
The PP took advantage of all this to lament the "instability generated" at Ràdio Televisió Española. "It is an example of the crisis that exists where there is political interference by the central government in its attempt to control all the public media", pointed out its parliamentary spokesman, Miguel Tellado.
In this open crisis, the PSOE has avoided directly pointing out the leader of Sumar, although, off the microphone, there are several voices that, since the commons - a party included in the plurinational group - have destroyed the budgets of the Generalitat and those of Barcelona criticize that Yolanda "Díaz does not control his game".
While from the confederal space, the PSOE is criticized for having "abandoned the fight to advance social rights" in housing matters. That is why Sumar has shown his misgivings about the preliminary draft of the Land law reactivated by the socialists, since they understand that it restricts access to public action by limiting citizens' ability to act.
The word crisis has not come out of the mouths of any of the partners of the coalition, but yesterday the warning that Díaz sent at the weekend echoed again in the two headquarters: "Whoever thinks at this moment that he can do everything alone, he is wrong".
