The debate on the amnesty law in Congress ended and Pedro Sánchez entered the room to take his seat. The entire debate was ruined and did not get the votes. There was a shout of “traitor!” coming from the ranks of Vox, whose deputies had tried to set the discussion on fire. The Socialists moved like a spring to cheer their leader, who had been busy with apparently more important matters. To begin with, he avoided the speeches of Junts and Esquerra, whose words denied the justification given by Sánchez for the collective forgiveness of all persecuted or convicted pro-independence leaders.
It was a session in which the Congress president completely lost control of the situation. In reality, he never had the slightest chance, because Vox decided to boycott the plenary and turn it into a drunken brawl. This time they were not satisfied with a few insults hurled from the benches. Several deputies rose from their seats to scream and cry at Francina Armengol's helplessness. Manuel Mariscal and Pedro González stood together to call the representatives of the left “traitors” and “sellouts.” They weren't the only ones.
Armengol once called some of them to order, including Mariscal, but did not dare to expel them. The Rules of the House provides that after the third call to order, the presidency “may impose the sanction of not attending the remainder of the session.” That would include the vote, although there are doubts whether the penalty could be lifted just before the start of the vote.
The Vox delegates openly sought his expulsion, likely with the intention of delegitimizing the end result. that was 177 votes in favor and 172 against. Mariscal shouted again during the vote, an unprecedented event in Congress.
Previously, the president had made the mistake of giving a minute reply to Sumar's spokesman, Gerardo Pisarello, to respond to Santiago Abascal. He didn't when José María Figaredo, from Vox, tried to respond to Pisarello. Almost all interventions contain serious cross-accusations. It was not clear why the Sumar substitute was given the chance for an extra minute.
The independentistas presented themselves as the big winners. After their dismal result in the Catalan elections, in which they lost their absolute majority, it was time to stick out their chests. “It's not forgiveness or clemency. It is a victory,” says Míriam Nogueras of Junts. Victory for their own country, it is understood. He declared that this is a battle won “in the conflict that has pitted two nations against each other for centuries.” The Junts received 21% of the vote in May, a figure that puts into perspective their ambition to lead a new independence process.
Gabriel Rufián of ERC called it “the first defeat of the '78 regime.” He then congratulated key leaders of both parties, including those convicted in the Supreme Court trial. He even included Puigdemont in the acknowledgments: “Thank you, Carles Puigdemont, for leading such a courageous government,” referring to the 2017 one.
The former president is not normally on Rufián's list of favorite politicians, something that Puigdemont's followers, who throw all kinds of insults at him on social networks and not only remind him of the tweet about “155 silver coins”, know very well.
“We will do it again, we will do it together,” Jordi Cuixart, one of those convicted in the trial, said on Twitter, despite not being an elected official and having not endorsed any law deemed illegal by the courts Was considered.
The political success of the process in Catalonia was based on unity of action between very different parties and an immense social mobilization that translated into an absolute pro-independence majority at the polls. The Junts blew up that unity of action when they left the government of Pere Aragonès, the subsequent failure of which caused the collapse of the vote for Esquerra. The mobilization has been diluted to nothing, due to the outrage of the ANC, which has accused the parties of their inaction. At the last elections, the sum of the Junts, the ERC and the CUP was left without a majority. The independence movement is only experiencing defeats in Catalonia, which does not mean that these are irreversible.
In politics, only very naive people believe that announcing that you are going to do something is a strong guarantee that it will be very easy to fulfill your wishes.
After so many months of discussion, the arguments of the PSOE and the PP were very repeated. No one from the government defended the law, as it was based on a PSOE bill. His spokesperson in the debate, Artemi Rallo, did not forget that we are in a campaign and melodradratically announced that Feijóo “will be devoured by his own people and by the neo-fascist beast sweeping through Spain and Europe.” The standard “respects the separation of powers” – said the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, outside the room – because it will be the judges who will have the “ultimate decision” on its application.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo left doubt in the air: “If this law is applied, gentlemen of the PSOE, you will be of little use to the independence movement. And if it is not finally applied, gentlemen of the independence movement, we all know they will not forgive you.” There is always doubt about the outcome of an appeal to the Constitutional Court, but everyone is thinking of a more sinister option: that there are judges who believe that they are not obliged to apply a law approved by parliament or who manipulate. In that case the new standard is not affected.
That's what the trial prosecutors plan to do reserve the right to apply the law to some aspects and not to others. The amnesty party has concluded this during the legislature, but the option is very real that there will be an extension in the courts.