As it was an agreed strategy, Yolanda Díaz emulated Pedro Sánchez and also refused to confront Alberto Núñez Feijóo in Congress. However, despite this coordination, Sumar’s great contribution to the investiture debate of the PP leader was to fill one of the great gaps left by the PSOE: to speak openly about an amnesty for the Catalan independence movement and defend it without complexes as “a opportunity to turn the page.” What Pedro Sánchez shied away from, Sumar’s spokespersons did.

The words of Marta Lois, first, and Enrique Santiago, later, thus prepared the ground to meet Carles Puigdemont’s great demand to give his seven votes. And try to convince people “who have doubts and are not sure what to think.”

Lois denied that the amnesty is to benefit “the political elites”, as the PP says about this pardon to Puigdemont, and presented it as an initiative to relieve “hundreds of anonymous people who were involved in a political conflict.”

“The amnesty is one more step after the pardons to advance a negotiated solution to the political conflict with Catalonia. An opportunity to turn the page and be able to concentrate our energies on the shared challenges that lie ahead,” he said.

In that sense, he legitimized that the amnesty is an “instrument” to “resolve political conflicts in extraordinary moments” and defended addressing it “to strengthen our democratic coexistence.”

Against those who oppose it, such as the PP, he argued that they do it because it is a “disgrace” for “those who want to continue living in the conflict and profit from it.”

During the reply, and already with Enrique Santiago (IU) on the platform, Sumar justified the amnesty to “reestablish normal relations” with Catalonia and for being “the end of a normalization process” fruit of “a great agreement of understanding” with the Catalan forces.

The also general secretary of the PCE maintained that the Constitution “does not prohibit” the amnesty and that the constituent fathers decided “not to limit it” so that Congress could approve one “when necessary.” Santiago endorsed the process of “detente and dialogue” undertaken by the coalition government and replied to the PP that it is being successful because it is “normalizing” the situation in Catalonia with a deflation of the situation.

Regarding the investiture debate itself, Lois reproached Feijóo for having used the investiture to resist as leader of the PP. “The only one being examined here today is you. And you are not doing it as president of the government, you are doing it as head of the opposition. It is your own party that is giving you the exam,” reproached the spokesperson, who made the first intervention , of about 30 minutes, and which left the 10-minute reply to be distributed between Santiago and the leader of the commons in Madrid, Aina Vidal.

Sumar’s spokesperson reproached Feijóo for seeking to govern a country “that does not understand” and assured that the future lies in dialogue. Thus, in a message directed towards the PSOE, Lois concluded by asking Sánchez for urgency. “It is necessary to show your face, not hide, and seek agreements and solutions as soon as possible,” she said.

Podemos was left out of the debate, although the permanent whispering during the session between Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, on the blue bench of ministers, was much commented on in Congress.

Sumar did not give them a turn to speak and at the end the purple deputy Javier Sánchez Serna criticized that attitude, because he said that “the voice was missing” from a party that demands a government with “ambition.” “Our space has to have ambition and has to claim autonomy from the PSOE so as not to end up being a troupe,” he said in statements in the hallways.

The purple party questioned Sumar’s decision to leave them silent and claimed their autonomy to intervene and make themselves heard in these situations. Sánchez Serna revealed that in the previous days they were refused to say who was going to intervene. “I don’t understand why Podemos wasn’t present. I hope it’s a situation that will be corrected in the future.”