There is no truce. The PP has failed in the investiture, but this will not sink it into depression or make it leave the PSOE the expedited path. In the PP they say that they will pay Pedro Sánchez with the same currency that the socialists used during the long month that passed since the King commissioned Alberto Núñez Feijóo to try to form a government until yesterday, when Congress definitively rejected him as president
This is what the PP must do now, popular sources underline, "press" and do it harshly, try to "impede" as much as possible the negotiations with ERC and Junts that Pedro Sánchez is carrying out in order to try to form a government, if at all the King commissions him next week, after the round of consultations that the monarch will start on Monday.
How can they pressure him?, reminding the PSOE what he said about the amnesty and what he says about it now; looking for each other's statements about the self-determination referendum, and what they say about it now. Popular people believe that Sánchez will try to present himself as the one who said no to the self-determination referendum, in order to "sneak" the amnesty without anyone opposing it. If this were to happen, the PP says it will be there to remind Sánchez what the Spanish Government said some time ago about the clemency measure from a legal point of view, with reports that considered it "clearly unconstitutional".
Popular pressure will also be aimed at the possibility that the investiture agreement opens up the opportunity to hold a self-determination referendum. The PP assures that they will mobilize "all the instruments at their disposal to say no".
The methods of pressure have already begun to be applied these days of the investiture and in Genoa they consider that they have given a good result. It's not just that the PP will come out en masse against the amnesty and the self-determination referendum, it's that, say the sources consulted, they've already seen how the street responds when people are called to say no to the grace measure.
In other words, Sánchez will face harsh words from the PP in the coming weeks. In fact, the popular leader, Núñez Feijóo, already spoke in this regard yesterday in the speech prior to the vote that caused his investiture to fail. In his last speech to Congress, the president of the PP questioned Sánchez directly, and challenged him to explain to all Spaniards whether he will grant amnesty to those responsible for the process, and whether he will allow a referendum on self-determination in Catalonia. He had tried on Tuesday without success, since Sánchez did not go up to the podium to respond to the candidate.
"Now you go up here" - said Feijóo yesterday from the Congress podium. "Don't hide and speak clearly, without silences, without announcements at night full of euphemisms. Go up and say what Spain has to endure if you are president. Have the courage that you didn't have on Tuesday and say what you think of the sharp and clear demands of the pro-independence parties". The challenge of the president of the PP is clear: "Go up and say it clearly. Amnesty yes or no?; self-determination referendum yes or no?".
For Feijóo, after the failure of his investiture there are only two exits and neither of them is honorable", he said, for what they imply. It would be, he stressed, "a lying government or an electoral repeat". He assured that a Sánchez government with the support of ERC and Junts "will be based on lies", since "either the independentists have lied" if they give in to their demands, or "they will have deceived their voters and the Socialist Party ".
Feijóo states that it is more than likely that the acting president is deceiving the PSOE, "hence his silences". That's why he insisted: "Mr. Sánchez, amnesty yes or no?, I say no; self-determination referendum yes or no?, Mr. Sánchez, I say no”. The leader of the PP sees it very possible that Sánchez will be president, but it will be, he said, "at the expense of the dignity and equality of the Spanish".
The popular leader also said that the electoral repeat is the "most decent" option for Sánchez, because "consent was not requested for the referendum or the amnesty just two months ago". In this sense, he told the socialists that "if they want to do it, get it at the polls".
During yesterday's session the president of the PP did not ask for the vote of any deputy from outside the parties that support him, and he rejected that he has encouraged defections, but he asked the socialists "not to defect from their voters, of its principles and of the transition. Don't be."
Of course, on the approaches to which Esperanza Aguirre added yesterday, such as that the PP refrain from the investiture of Sánchez, so that it does not depend on the pro-independence parties, the popular leader made his position clear: "We will not admit cynicism that then they ask us what they deny us now. Another step of cynicism, no more."
