Concern is growing among PP officials because they believe that Feijóo’s opposition speech “is going to hell” in this legislature
MADRID, 12 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The PP leadership tried to calm the same early Sunday morning the open controversy over a possible conditional pardon for Carles Puigdemont and the study of the amnesty for 24 hours and distributed an internal argument to all its officials that night, as sources have told Europa Press. ‘popular’.
After midnight, around 12:30 p.m., the PP leaders received that document on their devices under the title “Amnesty”, similar to the one that the party also sent to all the press to respond to the information published in more than a dozen media citing sources from the party leadership.
According to these PP sources, Feijóo would be open to a pardon for Puigdemont conditional on him being tried, repenting and rejecting the unilateral route. Furthermore, the party would have studied the fit of a possible amnesty during the negotiations for Feijóo’s investiture, although it would have been discarded in “24 hours.” These same sources acknowledged that it would be difficult to prove the crime of terrorism in the case of the former Catalan president.
In this argument, the PP emphasizes that “it would never pardon a person accused of any crime who did not show total regret for his actions or show a intention to amend”, conditions that, according to it emphasizes, “were not met with the pardons of the process.” and “fewer are those who have not yet been prosecuted for having abandoned our country to escape the action of Justice”, in reference to Puigdemont.
“Our position is clear: neither amnesty (because it is unconstitutional) nor pardons (because they are unfair and arbitrary) for those who defied the State and would do it again,” says the same document, in which it emphasizes that this is why the PP said “not in less than 24 hours” to the amnesty that Pedro Sánchez “has been wanting to promote in Spain for five months.”
However, the published information has caused a great commotion and astonishment within the PP, where many officials do not understand that the national leadership of the party has become “entangled” with this matter when the last week of the Galician campaign begins.
“I had to read it several times. I was shocked,” confessed a leader of the PP, who admits that people are upset by what has happened because it destroys the discursive line of Feijóo and the party in the last year and in the remainder of the legislature, especially when they have been leading several street protests against the amnesty.
This is an opinion shared by more members of the party, who believe that they have given “ammunition” to Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE and Vox for the coming months. For now, this Monday the Government’s spokesperson minister, Pilar Alegría, has already demanded that the PP clarify “what was agreed upon” with Junts in their contacts for the failed investiture of Feijóo and has asked the ‘popular’ if they have revealed that they would be in favor of a conditional pardon for Puigdemont out of “fear” that the independence party “will tell the truth” about what they talked about.
In the ranks of the PP some officials do not believe what has been published. “I see people a little lost because no one can believe this,” says a person from the party. “It is worrying because the PP’s entire discourse is going to hell. What opposition are we going to do now?” summarizes another position from the party.
It has caused special indignation among some PP leaders that the PP leadership admitted that it is difficult to prove that Puigdemont committed the crime of terrorism. “Then why have we gone to Europe and taken it to the Venice Commission?” asks a PP official.
Some sources do not hide their fear that Puigdemont may have some cards in store after the contacts they had last summer regarding the constitution of the Congress Board and the investiture of Feijóo. “More than fear that this will undermine the Galicians, it is fear that it will undermine the entire legislature,” acknowledges a PP leader, who believes that in Galicia the party can revalidate the absolute majority if it works well in this last week of the campaign.
This Monday in Barbate – where he traveled after the death of two civil guards hit by a drug boat on Friday night -, Feijóo focused on requesting that the police presence in the Strait be reinforced and that the National Court take on the cases. serious cases of organized crime and drug trafficking, avoiding answering questions about other topics “out of respect for what has happened” in Barbate, as he has said.
This internal controversy of the PP occurs precisely when almost two years have passed since Feijóo landed on Génova Street after a deep internal crisis that took away the leadership of Pablo Casado, now away from politics and focused on his new work on an investment fund in defense and cybersecurity.
After the war unleashed between Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso – which broke out when information was published about alleged espionage on the brother of the Madrid president, Tomás Díaz Ayuso – it ended when in the early hours of February 24, Casado agreed to his departure with the territorial ‘barons’ of the PP, among them Feijóo, who had the unanimous support of those present to take over the Presidency of the PP in an extraordinary congress that was held on April 1 and 2 in Seville.
