The absences have been visually concealed, because many senators had been squeezed between the 350 seats of Congressional deputies. Even without physical spaces in the chamber, the message sent by four of Pedro Sánchez’s investiture partners this Wednesday has been very eloquent: the parliamentarians from ERC, Junts, EH Bildu and BNG stood up to the King during the solemn opening ceremony of the General cuts.
Unlike Princess Leonor’s swearing-in of the Constitution a month ago, on this occasion the members of Sumar have gone en bloc to the Lower House instead of sending a “minimal institutional representation.” However, its two members on the Board of this institution, Gerardo Pisarello and Esther Gil, have remained undaunted while the respectable majority applauded Felipe VI’s speech.
Nor has he moved his hands to applaud the head of state Marta Lois, the spokesperson in Congress for the space led by the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz. In this he has agreed with the former Minister of Social Rights and General Secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, and with Aitor Esteban, from the PNV, another of the parties that voted in favor of Sánchez’s re-election.
Felipe VI waited standing in the main gallery next to Doña Letizia while he was acclaimed by those who did applaud him loudly. Meanwhile, some timid “Long live the King!” has been heard. A minute later the Monarch made a gesture to the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, to adjourn the session.
Two hours before the event began, ERC, EH Bildu and BNG had issued a statement in which they declared themselves “independence, sovereigntist and republican” forces and attacked the Monarchy, calling it an “anachronistic institution, incompatible with essential democratic principles” for be “hereditary and for life.”
Sánchez’s partners added in that letter that, in the Spanish case, the undemocratic nature of this institution is accentuated by the fact that “it was imposed by the dictator Franco and was, to that extent, heir to Francoism.” “A true democracy will only be possible from the break with the heritage, the bases and values that the King and his figure represent,” he added.
After criticism from the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, for the “boycott” of the independence supporters of Felipe VI at the event, the ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, responded that “working is not being in a seat applauding to legitimize an undemocratic and corrupt institution” such as, in his opinion, the Monarchy.