Former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is "an icon" for progress in rights and freedoms in Spain, as defined by Minister María Jesús Montero, Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE, at the inauguration this Saturday of the municipal conference that the socialists celebrate in Valencia as the starting signal for the 28-M elections. And, with these stripes, Zapatero has called on the Socialists to go to the polls with "pride" for the achievements made by Pedro Sánchez in this legislature. For the labor reform, the rise in the minimum wage, the Democratic Memory law or the future Housing law already unblocked. But Zapatero has also wanted to vindicate, singularly, Sánchez's policy of dialogue to "pacify" Catalonia. And his "courage" in pardoning the pro-independence leaders of the process.
"I want to say it here again today," Zapatero warned. "For me, the decision that distinguishes a president with leadership, with a vision of the future, is the decision that Pedro Sánchez, with courage and great success, made when applying pardons in the process of Catalonia", highlighted the former president, to the applause of the PSOE conference.
"Not so long ago, we had Spain in a very serious crisis, regarding its identity and its unity," Zapatero stressed, regarding the territorial crisis that erupted in 2017 in Catalonia. "And today we have a horizon of some tranquility," he insisted. "All the colleagues of the Socialist Party, in every corner of Spain, have the duty, the commitment and the conviction, which is the most important thing, to say that thanks to the Government of Pedro Sánchez, the future of the unity of Spain is in a a time of stability and tranquility”, he defended.
Zapatero, under whose mandate ETA terrorism ended, has thus focused on "peace, coexistence in diversity and non-violence" as democratic ideals. "We are going to these municipal and regional elections with peace, without violence in any territory of Spain, nor in the Basque Country, and with a pacified Catalonia thanks to the dialogue position of the Government of Pedro Sánchez", he highlighted. And he has called for "preserving peaceful coexistence" as a "primary task, commitment and greater service that the PSOE provides to Spain." “We want a Spain in peace and coexistence, a Spain that integrates, that unites, not that divides. That is the desirable Spain and the possible Spain ”, he assured.
The municipal conference of the PSOE before the elections of the next May 28 has thus started on the morning of this Saturday in the City of Arts and Sciences of Valencia, with the president Ximo Puig as host, with an inaugural act in which also Minister María Jesús Montero, deputy general secretary of the party, participated. Former minister Carolina Darias, now a candidate for mayor of Las Palmas, chairs the table of this conference, which Pedro Sánchez will close this Sunday. And, in the front row of the act, the minister Diana Morant, the ex-minister Reyes Maroto, head of the socialist poster for the mayoralty of Madrid, the candidate in Barcelona, Jame Collboni, or Sandra Gómez, candidate for the mayoralty of Valencia, have also been there. together with the main PSOE mayors who are running for re-election on 28-M, such as Antonio Muñoz from Seville, Abel Caballero from Vigo or Óscar Puente from Pucelona. "This is the time for the brave, we all risk it!" Montero cried, at the starting signal of an electoral race of the municipal and regional elections that will be decisive for Pedro Sánchez to run for re-election as president of the Government after the appointment with the general polls scheduled for the end of the year.
At the same time, but more than 600 kilometers away, the head of the Executive himself has intervened in Bilbao in a heartfelt tribute to the recently deceased leader Rodolfo Ares, who has had the participation and assistance of the current leader of the Basque socialists, Eneko Andueza, the vice lehendakari Idoia Mendia, as well as the former lehendakari Patxi López, current spokesperson for the PSOE in Congress, and other classics of Basque socialism such as Ramón Jáuregui or Jesús Eguiguren. An act in which Sánchez has also taken advantage of to try to inject energy into the socialist ranks before the 28-M. “We are a victory party, hungry to win! We are a party to win, of winners, because we are aware of the importance of leading the institutions to be able to promote changes! ”, He cried.
Sánchez has highlighted as milestones of his management in this legislature the labor reform, the increase in the minimum wage or the revaluation of pensions according to the CPI, and has already incorporated into his electoral discourse the future Housing law agreed the day before with ERC and EH Bildu. For the right, he has assured, the reforms are synonymous with "cuts." But he has used the "social democratic way" against the "neoliberal response" that he has attributed to the Popular Party. And he has ensured that all his reforms promoted by the socialists have the same goal: "Dignity." Also "dignity in access to housing, and that is why we have approved the first housing law in the history of democracy, to transform a huge problem into a right." And he has regretted that the PP has already announced that it will appeal the future regulation before the Constitutional Court. "They resort to each advance," he highlighted. “But the future will once again agree with progress, and it will leave the right where it always has been”, he predicted.
The leader of the PSOE has also made an electoral banner before the 28-M of the defense of Doñana, in Huelva, against the initiative approved in Andalusia by the PP and Vox to regularize irrigation in a national park that, he has assured, "does not It is no one's farmhouse, but everyone's heritage. “I ask the Andalusian right to park its arrogance, recognize the error and stop this outrage. To govern is to work for the interest of the majority, to govern is not to feel like the owner of any farmhouse! ”, Sánchez has claimed in an implicit demand to the president of the Board, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla.
