Opinion

The winter of our disenchantment

photo_camera yolanda diaz

   The president has sailed in his Falcon this week between sandbanks. After the press recounted his Memories of Africa, he assured with aplomb that the pact to close the scandal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and the Constitutional Court (TC) was closed. 

   His deputy secretary of organisation and Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero Cuadrado, came out of the woodwork and confirmed in parliament what was already known: ERC supported these public accounts in exchange for laundering the seditious Catalans by modifying the Penal Code so that the coups of 2017 and the next one would be totally free. 

    Montero Cuadrado, drunk on preaching the goodness of her Ricolas and Juanolas from the pulpit of Congress, worsened the situation in the corridors, although she did not say anything different from what her leader and the valiant Bolaños had already said. For the PP, Montero Cuadrado's verbiage came off well. 

antonio regalada politica en españa

Back to square one

   The phone call between Sánchez and Feijóo must have been tense. Once the determination of the "Caesar Imperator" to lead the de-judicialisation of Justice to satisfy Junqueras and Co. was confirmed, the PP leader hung up and, after consulting with Ayuso and Moreno, issued a fatwa at dusk on Tuesday. You will hear what he wrote in point 5: "It is an insurmountable incongruence to agree to strengthen the rule of law at the same time as agreeing with other parties to remove its protection". As a result, the talks are suspended. 

   Moncloa never accepts no as an answer. And even less so if they find out about it from the press. The journalists on board the presidential plane had never seen a Pedro Sánchez so dejected and angry. The proof is that he did not let them record neither image nor sound. The usual slogans: "he has surrendered to the pressure of the right and the extreme right; it is the twilight of his political time, he has no autonomy...".  Disqualifications.

   More of the same. It is said by Pedro Sánchez who lives as a prisoner of coup plotters, Basque nationalists and heirs of ETA; it is said by Sánchez who cannot change the UP members of his government; it is said by Pedro who the first guy he received in his office clandestinely was George Soros, a financial mafioso whose foundation continues to support the secession of Catalonia. So far, Sanchismo has done well with its Frankenstein alliance. It has fooled everyone all along.

    It called what happened on 1-0 a coup d'état and rebellion; it blessed the Supreme Court ruling and promised to comply with it; it denied pardons and ended its last election campaign on TVE by promising to bring Puigdemont in and put him in jail. It had to be Pablo Iglesias who told him: "a judge will put him in, not you". The secretary general of the PSOE has forgotten all that. All his phrases (including his support for Art. 155) should be reprinted in gold leaf.      
                                                                                                      
   Sánchez has once again become "a Zelig"; Woody Allen's chameleon-like character who mimics the landscape, walks through fields of madness and always emerges unscathed. He continually changes his profile and adopts a more popular one. The truth is that history has stopped and now we have to start in the goose box. We have fallen into the labyrinth. And from the labyrinth to the 30th.

antonio regalada politica en españa

Objective: to drain the Constitution

   A crusade of revenge against Alberto Núñez Feijóo has been unleashed in the last few hours throughout the media left while the leaves change colour on bronze trees before an endless "veroño". The spectacle is so beautiful that it cannot be endured, taking advantage of the teachings of the author of "Apropos of nothing". 

   The written and digital press, radio, public and private television and social networks have embarked on an unprecedented smear campaign. A hunt for the man, the politician, the alternative (alone or in the company of VOX). And Sanchismo is sparing no expense in artillery and Iranian drones. The question is: will the PP president withstand this pressure? There is no other way. Or the electorate will look for another party.

   The proof that there were still some loose ends to be ironed out in the agreement - an agreement that is not worth the paper it was written on - is that a final meeting was scheduled for 2 November in the government palace. So the Count-Duke of Bolaños is lying. The Feijóo-González Pons duo were caught in a trap after the resignation of Carlos Lesmes. The leader of the PP never had to attend that meeting. As the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, said, but no one paid any attention to her, 'this was a matter for Parliament, not the government'. But Sanchismo only needs to bend Justice to whitewash its anti-constitutional past. This is the Executive that permanently accuses the PP of not complying with the Magna Carta. It is necessary to throw "trillos" at it.  

   A government that guarantees the Generalitat that it will not appeal the 25% ruling on subjects in Spanish is constitutional, of course. And a government that orders by decree and with urgency is "very constitutional". Wow.  

   Núñez Feijóo has to argue that, as Europe demands, the reform has to be comprehensive. For this, it is mandatory to repeal the Guerra-Peces Barba Law that assassinated Montesquieu in 1985 (Art.122). Twelve members of the CGPJ appointed by the judges, four by the Congress and four by the Senate. Return to Parliament. 

   At the same time, recover the previous appeal of unconstitutionality. After stating for the record that it is a lie that in Europe sedition and secession have lesser penalties - Germany punishes them with life imprisonment and in France they are forbidden to debate the republican system and the integrity of the homeland - any reform of the Penal Code must include the political and economic disqualification of the mutineers. Inexcusably. If the penalties are reduced, they will end up carrying out the coup, as they have already done. And, furthermore, the current Council must be given back all its powers. 

antonio regalada politica en españa

   The PP has realised that with a "progressive" president of the TC like Conde Pumpido, they will gladly "soil their robes with the dust of the road". There are 47 complaints of unconstitutionality (from abortion in 2012 to the Celáa Law or the ruling on 25% Spanish in schools in Catalonia); if the Council and the TC were renewed today "not even the mother who gave birth to Spain would recognise it", to quote Alfonso Guerra again. 

   It is surprising that in the last point of the popular communiqué the door is left open to remain at the disposal of President Sánchez. A man who has not explained about the Sahara, Pegassus or Algeria is not to be trusted. Why such an open door to the abyss? Are your legs trembling? Explain yourself clearly also in Brussels.

   Feijóo's commitment will be his best electoral trump card in May. If Sanchismo has united its destiny with nationalists, coup plotters, separatists and heirs of the Basque terror, let the 26 know it and for those who talk about homogenising sentences, let them read the Strasbourg Parliament's condemnation of Nazism and communism. Germany banned communist and Nazi parties in 1949. Is the FRG not a full democracy?

   The People's Party does not trust Sánchez either. You can't always play with marked cards. "State agreements of this PP but not with this PSOE", Genova13 has specified. Let's wait. Better to get off the train than to walk towards the dismantling of the nation. If he does not firmly hold on to the mast of the Supreme Rule, Feijóo will see his leadership undermined and his squire Cuca touched and almost sunk. The important thing is unity. 1984, Mr Núñez, was written between 1947 and 1948 by a certain George, George Orwell. There I leave it. 

Forty years and one day 

     Spain has changed a lot. We will never forget Felipe González's victory on 28 October 1982. Nor will we forget that democracy was not brought about by the PSOE but by Adolfo Suárez of the UCD. The socialists have governed this country of ours for 25 years. With lights and shadows. His biographers say that FG still regrets calling the NATO referendum. A referendum to stay? Pride knows no bounds. 

   González is the most loved and admired of all the exes. But at decisive moments, he has always kept quiet on serious matters. He opened the doors to Europe and Latin America but GAL, Filesa, Malesa, Time Sport, Red Cross, Expo - wholesale corruption - tarnished his mandate. 

   The PSOE never led 100 years of honesty. Neither 40 years of democracy nor 40 years of progress. The venerable González allowed such outrages as endorsing the corrupt Pujol or expropriating Rumasa, which he then gave away to his friends. He surrendered nuclear policy to the guns of ETA, after the murder of engineer Ryan in Lemoniz. The consequences are here. Not to be forgotten, the "number one", the "god of Benegas", was the politician most opposed to the legalisation of the PCE and the last to join the Pactos de la Moncloa. The socialist triumph, it is true, changed Spain and turned the country around without excluding anyone. He was a transformer. A social democrat. He made a Copernican and incomprehensible U-turn on the Sahara. He was at the top praising the absence of Guerra in Seville. May he enjoy it! 
 

antonio regalada politica en españa

    Rodríguez Zapatero's seven-year term was a period for cancellation if that were possible. It is hard to find such an inept leader. He was the godfather of ETA and the guarantor of Maragall's Statute. And there are the facts. Today he is the spokesman for the narco-dictatorship of Maduro and Xi. His latest feat is to praise Montero's transnational policies and proclaim that the budget is "too militaristic". A guy who pulled Spanish troops out of Iraq shouting "cowards and chickens! Water, Water, that is the cry to Europe. Water for gas.  

    The four years of Sánchez, who wants to take advantage of F.G.Márquez's slipstream, are a deep squall. He is an impostor. Of the five lustrums of socialism, Sánchez's four years are hell. He achieved the heroic deed of removing Franco's remains from the Valley of Cuelgamuros. We give him a pensioner's Medal for war merits.

  In reality, a textbook radical who as a spoilt posh child always blames others. Showing up in Kenya, thinking he was in Senegal and reading Senegal twice, is psychiatric. Confusing Blas de Otero with Jaime Gil de Biezma, next to the Guadalquivir confirms that he needs to expand his list of advisors. Another hundred more. He doesn't care about anything. It is never easy to convince, let alone deceive, a compulsive liar. 

   On this date with the past, Sánchez closed the event in Seville by looking to the old PSOE for the impetus he needs to finish off the legislature. He sees everything through the lens of electioneering. The logical thing would have been for him to present the honoree and for the socialist people to applaud their charismatic leader with rapturous applause. But Don Pedro always demands to be the "protagonist". After insulting the current PP and Aznar's, he wrapped himself in the flag of 8D-78. Sánchez asks to comply with the Constitution "through and through". Start, Mr. President, with Art.122 and comply and enforce the sentences of the courts.

antonio regalada politica en españa

Absences at the socialist summit have broken the PSOE generationally. In Seville, almost everything began with the tortilla photo, but the EREs of Chaves-Griñán broke the sack of greed. Time took away what was left of Susanita. This autumn, forty-one years and one day later, smells of mothballs. 

What's left of the week

   Another week without rain in Madrid. The King and Queen giving glamour to the Prince and Princess of Asturias Awards. The Budgets do not balance despite the "cuponazo" and the gift of surfing and pelota being able to play against Spain in international championships. What will the Consejo Superior de Deportes say? Nothing. Franco will say nothing. It is a wide-open window to the rupture. Roller hockey, hockey, futbito, swimming, horse racing, polo, cycling, football, petanque... There is no limit. Everything has roots.

   The figures for unemployment, the CPI - down a little - and the GDP all point to a technical recession, however much Ms Calviño insists that we are doing well and lies that we are the EU country that creates the most jobs. Above all, youth employment.

   The Trans Law has opened two fronts; that of the PSOE against the PSOE and that of UP against the PSOE. It seems that Minister Montero, Minister of Equality, wins. Experts speak of irreversible castration of children. They can't smoke but they can let themselves be hormone-treated without the support of experts or the consent of their parents. Pure logic. That's science. These irresponsible guys will ruin the party, the municipality, the union and the family. And Barça and Atlético de Madrid at the same time.  

   How our Yoli Magdalena Diaz has cried after stripping Franco Bahamonde, Girón de Velasco and Utrera Molina of their Gold Medals for Merit at Work! She has forfeited forgiveness to the victims. Any afternoon he will ask for forgiveness from the victims of ETA. Will he withdraw those medals from the person responsible for Paracuellos, Santiago Carrillo and the corrupt ugetista and socialist Ángel Fernández Villa? This week, in order to appear in the papers, Yoli has invented "the dismissal à la carte". Nadia knows nothing.

antonio regalada politica en españa

   But the biggest thing, as they say in Cuba, are the fines for animal owners. A fine if you don't take a course before buying a dog, a fine if you neglect the fish for three days, a fine for not neutering your pets and more fines if a shepherd decides to train his sheep's future mastiff. The fines range from 500 to 10,000 euros. Worse than a crime. 

They should be finalist emoluments to pay for the new animal ambulances and the centres that should be built in all the municipalities of Spain with 24/7 service (twenty-four hours/seven days a week). There are no doctors but we hire vets to satisfy the radioactive mum Ione Belarra. The Animal Protection Law wants this service to be paid for by the local councils. 

   I end by picking up from EL MUNDO the declarations of a desperate Doña Inés in this time of the dead in search of her Don Juan. Arrimadas has scandalised the Lower House by publicly describing Txapote's and Junqueras' students and the government that markets with them as criminals. And then, she has come out of the pack to denounce that the increase in pensions is unsustainable madness: "Patriotism is to tell the truth". Thank you for your sincerity. 

antonio regalada politica en españa

   And finally to note the equally desperate plea of the Ukrainian foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba: "Please give us more weapons to defeat Putin". The Russians are firing 8,000 shells a day at the population; Ukraine only 5,000. And he will win the war.

   Long aqueduct for this (distant) winter of our disenchantment. Our hope was running out of air. Always with Sir William Shakespeare. Next year we return to Stratford-upon-Avon. 

 Antonio REGALADO directs BAHÍA DE ÍTACA at: aregaladorodriguez.blogspot.com