The motion needed 176 favorable votes to pass. Instead, he had only the 52 votes that go to Vox and won the title of least support for a motion of censorship in the history of Spanish democracy. This was the fifth motion of censure that the democratic country attended.
There were two days of hard interventions in Parliament, marked by a speech of demarcation of the extreme right by the leader of the popular and, even at the end of the debate, after the discourse of Pablo Casado, by an attempt by Sánchez to approach and dialogue with the PP.
“We are not like you”
Only this morning, on the second day of the discussion of the motion of censure, did the doubt that still persisted disappear: whether the PP voted against the motion of censure or abstained.
“It makes us come here to waste time in the middle of the second wave” of the pandemic. That was how Pablo Casado, the PP leader, started his intervention. “Mr. Abascal, what you want is not to change the Government, it is to supplant the PP. Give up all hope. He is not the first to try, but he will be the last”, Argued Casado.
The PP leader elaborated his speech saying that the motion of censure serves Sánchez to remain in power. “This motion is more of a lie than Vox for Sánchez to remain in Moncloa,” said Casado, amid tough arguments to distance the PP from the extreme right.
“We are not like you. We are the quiet force of the Spaniards. This sensible force that will again represent this country when the Spaniards have the opportunity to elect their Government ”, said, in applause, in a very strong speech against Santiago Abascal, president of Vox.
“We are not noise, we do not feed fractures. We want to unite the Spaniards again (…) we want a united and diverse Spain, Mr. Abascal, Mr. Sánchez ”.
“We vote no his candidacy to preside over the Government of Spain. We will vote no to the polarization it needs. No to this anti-Spanish device. We say no because we say no to Sánchez and his partners: the visible and those in the shade, ”said Casado.
“You guys gave a bonus track to this Government for the next few months“, said.
In response, Santiago Abascal accused him of “trying to place him in the midst of those who agree with ETA and with others. It is an infamy that politically outrages me. We will try to amend this error. PP voters can rest assured, we will continue to reach out to them, in spite of everything ”, referring to Government agreements in various autonomous regions.
“Andalusians, Murcians, and Madrileños can rest assured about Vox’s historical responsibility,” he said.
Despite these words, it was later learned that the Vox suspended the negotiation of the Andalusian budgets, after the speech of the PP president.
The PSOE took advantage of this distance between PP and Vox to claim that the popular break with the party in autonomous executives, clearing themselves of “fascism”.
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Sánchez took advantage of the departure from the ultra-right to launch a proposal to the PP. “Mr Married, we need dialogue. Let us renew the judicial power. As the whole effort is little, today I take a step further. I announce that we are going to stop the clock on reforming the judiciary council”, Advanced Pedro Sánchez. It interrupts the parliamentary process of the proposal to elect members of the CGPJ so that the PP meets to negotiate the renewal of the cadre of magistrates. This was an initiative contested by the PP and criticized by the European institutions.
These are our conditions:
1. Withdraw the reform of the PSOE-Podemos against judicial independence
2. De-politicize the election of the CGPJ and Prosecutor’s Office
3. Exclude Podemos from the processSánchez accuses the pressure we have achieved in the EU. But you must meet these conditions.
– Teodoro García Egea (@TeoGarciaEgea) October 22, 2020
Pablo Iglesias, the executive’s number two, praised the PP president’s speech against the extreme right. “He made a brilliant speech, but he is late.”
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“Negligent and criminal”
The day before, Pedro Sánchez had asked Casado to vote “no”. “I invite you to cut with the far right. I formally ask you to vote not in this motion of censure, to proclaim that the Spanish right has nothing to do with the extreme right ”, said Sánchez to Casado. “The result must be constructive,” he said.
The Vox leader had chosen the same path. He had launched an appeal yesterday for the PP to vote in favor of the motion, the party that at that time had not yet clearly defined the direction of voting before the debate.
“Now is the time to ask you for your vote,” said Santiago Abascal, president of Vox, after a long speech. “It is up to you to demonstrate that among all, an alternative to this disaster that lies ahead of us must be built”.
He extended the appeal to the socialist bench. “I knew they were going to laugh, but I’m going to ask seriously. I am sure that they share the diagnosis about this government that was made by former leaders ”, he said, saying that these criticisms were made by deputies in private.
“We presented this motion because we have an obligation of conscience,” he said, accusing the Government of having “abandoned the Spanish”.
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“Spain will resist, move on, recover. The future of our children demands it ”, said closing the speech. “The Spaniards want to live together, in peace and freedom. We have to give them back their union, freedom, speech and vote. Long live the King and long live Spain, ”he said.
Santiago Abascal presented Spain in “ruin and decomposition” as an argument before Congress to win support for the censure motion.
Abascal repeated the argument that the Government was “the worst in 80 years of history”, “Negligent and criminal”. “Tell me about another country, another government that has done worse than you, with higher confinement or death rates. There isn’t, ”he reiterated.
Among the various attacks, Abascal considered Sánchez an “unscrupulous liar”, an “incapable one” and argued that salvation will not come from Brussels, at the same time that he threw splinters at China and the World Health Organization and made comparisons with Hitler or China. He referred to the virus in a mirror of what Trump’s words are, calling it a “Chinese virus”.
“They are not a government, they are a popular, communist social front, allied with separatists and terrorists. A mafia”, shot.
“Someday, History will judge them for abandoning the dying, without the farewell they deserved in the last moments. Without extreme unction, without the children’s hand ”.
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Abascal made a proposal for early elections. “If this motion is passed, we would call elections before this tragic year ends. It is urgent that the parties address the citizens with this new scenario. I present myself as a candidate to return the vote to the Spaniards, ”he said. “It is about stopping the process of destroying Spain ”.
“You don’t order. It just manages the project of an international mafia, ”he said, calling the Mafias around the migrants to speech.
“This Government brought ruin, misery and poverty”, considered Ignacio Garriga, who was responsible for opening the debate. “There was no dismissal, no excuse for the Spanish people,” he said. Vox justified the motion as “a national duty”, given the PP’s “inaction”.
In the speeches, however, Vox did not present any concrete proposal in any area. Only generic references such as “lowering all taxes” and “eliminating many” from taxes or eliminating the autonomous state to pay pensions.
“They are not a government, they are a popular, communist social front, allied with separatists and terrorists. A mafia,” he shot.
Sánchez. “We will not embark on any of your provocations”
“A declaration of intent, Mr. Abascal. As much as it provokes, we will not embark on any of your provocations ”, began by saying the Prime Minister, staring at the leader of the Vox. Saying that the motion of censure is a legitimate procedure in democracy, Sánchez classified this concrete proposal as “anything but constructive”.
“There was not even a proposal in your intervention”, reinforced. In the face of real problems like poverty or territorial tension, “there is only a fuss and a couple of insults. Development, employment, health, gender equality or the pandemic: there is no program ”, argued the president of the Spanish government.
“He knows that he has no chance of having confidence in the proposal. Given the brusque and unsettling tone of the content he exposed, I don’t think there was even an interest in gaining confidence. “We observed a hype that did not benefit the nation it claims to defend, and only served to sow discord and distract energies”.
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“They want to divide us, provoke us, face us. That is the reason for the motion, ”he said.
He accused Abascal of “taking advantage of the rules of democracy”. “He believes that he can use parliament as a great stage to shine. Real Spain is represented in this Chamber, as it is, not as you would like it to be ”.
Sánchez listed the challenges facing Spain with the pandemic, considering that the duty is “to continue with an expansionary and solidary economic policy”. “I don’t see that Europe is similar to China or Hitler as I said in his speech,” Sánchez said to Abascal.
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“I think it was clear that it does not have any support, because it does not have any project for this country”, concluded Sánchez this Thursday. Sánchez considered that Abascal did not make a single proposal on this topic. “No idea how to strengthen the health system or how to fight the virus,” he accused.
“It is not the savior of Spain, fortunately for Spain. The country already has millions of saviors in schools, supermarkets, factories. You are alone. He has pride and he lacks modesty ”.
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“This motion was the least constructive initiative we could imagine,” he added.-
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