And two hours and 40 minutes after the motion of censure began, the candidate, Ramón Tamames, was finally able to speak, who was relegated by Pedro Sánchez and Santiago Abascal, who forgot about the professor and got into a face-to-face to polarize and, incidentally, wear down the PP, which was the collateral victim of their confrontation. Meanwhile, sitting on a seat on the Vox bench was Tamames, in his gray wool vest and pink tie, stoically enduring the exchange of blows between the Prime Minister and the Vox leader, until they let him have his time. and could stop being a spectator in the motion that he leads.
It is true that Tamames’ speech had lost the power of the surprise factor after the leak of its content last week, however, the former leader of the PCE introduced many changes and many novelties with respect to that published text. He was interested in seeing what he did with his speech, in addition to the expectation generated by his own figure and political career, his independent poster and his differences with Vox in a motion of censure that was known to be doomed to failure. .
Tamames, who intervened in the debate sitting from the seat due to his problems standing for a long time, censured the Sánchez government for being “increasingly oppressive.” For this very reason, the candidate was going to defend the need to redirect the country with a call for general elections and hold them on May 28, making them coincide with the regional and municipal ones. However, what was the central argument of his speech and his government program was not pronounced by Tamames. Despite the fact that in the written version provided by Vox it appears several times. The candidate did not verbalize it.
Among other novelties that Tamames kept is that of a request to the “constitutional parties” to face a “radical change” towards the return of the “principles” of the parliamentary monarchy, national unity or the flag.
This appeal to PSOE, PP, Ciudadanos or Vox is based on complying with “a minimum for the entire nation”, that is, “a package of adequate measures, an electoral law without overrepresentation of separatists, monitoring of corruption” and a “pact” to make it possible for the country to recover a certain course of “harmony, peace and understanding among the majority of Spaniards”.
In this sense, and quoting José Manuel García-Margallo, he advocated the “recovery of consensus”. An idea that he underlined by citing the trade unionist Marcelino Camacho and the poet Antonio Machado.
In the most critical part of his speech, Tamames attacked the Sánchez government for not respecting the division of powers and for trying to take “control of Justice from the executive branch.” “Montesquieu is a troublesome visitor,” he quipped.
He also used sarcasm to indicate his joy at seeing how well the president “sleeps” despite his pacts with United We Can and the independentistas, contrary to what he declared. On the other hand, and in relation to the separatists, he accused Sánchez of arrogating “like the absolute monarchs” the “grace of the king” to “suppress the crimes of sedition and embezzlement”, or of having favored criminal benefits to more than 700 sexual offenders.
“His purpose of modifying the Penal Code in the manner exposed is precisely when all the opposition in this Chamber should have raised the motion of immediate censure,” he stressed.
On the other hand, the candidate’s speech left sentences for controversy. For example, in his allusions to the civil war, by saying that it began in 1934, with the October revolution, or by warning that “there was not only a good and a bad side”, “atrocities were committed on both sides” .
Likewise, and after defending businessmen and large companies from the Ibex35, he assured that SMEs “are not companies for the future”, although “we must respect them”.
Tamames, who closed by acknowledging that this is an unexpected sequence from the “own script” of his life, then gave way to Sánchez. However, in the middle of his speech, he interrupted him to reproach him for his abusive use of time and for him to go with “a bill of 20 pages” to answer him. It was not possible to hear everything he wanted to say because Batet withdrew the floor. Iván Espinosa de los Montero revealed it later in a message on Twitter: “What is not appropriate is that I bring here a bill of 20 pages prepared to talk about things that I have not said.”
In his response, the president regretted that Tamames with his candidacy contributes to “whitening” Vox, which denies equality between men and women, which denies climate change and criminalizes immigrants. “I don’t think it was even the best idea he’s ever had in his life,” he assured before reproaching him that the party behind the motion of no confidence is “heir to Blas Piñar.”
The Prime Minister warned that if early elections were called as the PP and Vox have been calling for for a long time, the first consequence would be not being able to validate the pension reform decree and the labor reform would not have gone ahead nor would the SMI have been raised. Sánchez also denied that he was buying votes with aid, subsidies and scholarships and has flatly rejected acting against businessmen.
“This is not a motion against me but against the policies that the progressive coalition is implementing,” said the president who has insisted time and time again on assimilating the PP and Vox in the same objective.
Sánchez embarked on his reply to the candidate in a long presentation that he had prepared and that has consisted of reeling off the electoral program “for the next four years” that he offers to the Spanish.
He accused Tamames of aligning himself with the neoliberal theses that advocate lowering taxes, cutting rights and curtailing public services. “Rajoy has already done all this,” he said, but without remembering that the situation he inherited from the socialist government was ruinous. “Competing in precariousness and cutbacks doesn’t work,” he concluded before expounding on the economic recipe that he advocates “combining economic growth with social welfare.”
In his reply, Tamames scolded Sánchez for his abuse of time and for taking “an hour and 40 minutes” in his response. “Why do we have to talk so much? It ends up being repetitive,” he said, to then reproach him for giving “lessons on things” with “prepared papers” without answering the questions raised, such as language, electoral law, sedition or embezzlement.
The candidate added that this motion will be “useful” because “they will have to change the regulations of the Chamber and set times.” “You can’t listen to a person for an hour and 40 minutes, giving lessons on things that we haven’t asked them to tell us about,” he said.
Tamames reproached him for using Blas Piñar to criticize him when today in Spain “nobody knows who he is”, even Sánchez, who is “very young”.
On the other hand, the candidate acknowledged that his “great hope” is that Vox changes his perception of climate change, which he denies. “I hope that soon they will be scholars of this subject,” he pointed out, and change their position because 80% of their militants already think so.
Catalonia, another issue with which he clashes head-on with Vox, because he considers that Spain is a “nation of nations”, he preferred not to touch it. “Today it’s not about, there are many issues,” he settled, thus avoiding disagreement and putting the party that proposes him in serious trouble.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
