The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, stated this Thursday that Junts per Catalunya is "making fools" of citizens with its rejection of the housing decrees that the Government will take this Friday to the Congress of Deputies, and has maintained that it all responds to "a shell game".
The Madrid leader has reacted to the rejection by the Junts Executive of validating the two decrees and its request for their withdrawal, along with the demand for a new text that "begins to reverse the serious housing situation". "With what impunity are these gentlemen in an office deciding the life and work of all Spaniards?" Ayuso asked.
The Madrid president has stressed that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, knew from the beginning that those decrees "could not be voted on by Junts", and has considered that the Executive has promoted "this barbarity" probably so that the pro-independence party would say no to them. In that vein, she stated that a party whose fundamental principles include "the part of capital economy and property" could not support that initiative: "A person with common sense who believes in those principles cannot approve this".
Ayuso has also pointed out that Junts' rejection is conditioned by the amnesty of its leader, Carles Puigdemont. "Then he doesn't want to tell you no, because this is all garbage. Do you think there's any principle here? This is a cluster of interests," she criticized, before adding that Junts cannot vote otherwise because, she said, then "he cannot return to Catalonia" because his neighbors have "criteria".
Criticism of the encampment in Puerta del Sol
In addition, the president of the Community of Madrid has strongly criticized the threats that, in her opinion, are occurring in the encampment in Puerta del Sol in favor of housing and against evictions, expressions that she has described as "in the purest Nazi style" and that she has attributed to people who want to foster social confrontation.
Asked about the projection of her face on the Real Casa de Correos, next to the phrase "Ayuso, Almeida, go to hell", and about the graffiti on the statue of the Bear and the Strawberry Tree with the message "Ayuso beware", she maintained that it is not something personal, but a broader attack against those who, she said, believe in Spain as "a joyful, generous and hardworking country". "Right now, the image of Spain before the world is a nonsense, it is Ceuta, Puerta del Sol, everything we are experiencing," she expressed.
Ayuso has warned that "we are going to experience very tough scenes in the coming weeks and months" and has insisted that housing is a problem that affects the entire country, "not only in Madrid", although she has stated that those who have promoted this protest do not really care. In addition, she has pointed out that due to the encampment in Sol, many events are "canceled" and cannot be held for safety reasons, due to images of "fights and urine".
In that context, she indicated that merchants and affected parties have already written to the Government Delegation, the City Council and the Community of Madrid to ask for help and demand action. Regarding the specific case of the eviction of Maricarmen, the elderly woman over 80 years old evicted from her home in Retiro, she said that "the three lefts" have used "the 55,000th eviction of the year", which she doesn't "give a damn" about, to take advantage of the situation.
Criticism of Pedro Sánchez and the management of the conflict
Ayuso has also denounced that, if housing had been a real priority in Spain, action would have been taken during the last eight years. In her opinion, what cannot be is that today there are owners who do not know what will become of their homes or the future of their children, and she has warned that the image projected abroad is that of a "third world" country that does not respect justice or legal certainty.
The Madrid president has rejected "riots" and also "the law of the jungle, tyranny or revolution", recalling that Spain is a parliamentary democracy. "And those of us who are here, are here because the people of Madrid, in the polls, have freely decided that there should be these politicians with these seats," she added.
Finally, she has criticized the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, whom she accuses of not leaving power "democratically" without submitting "to the separation of powers, the rule of law and political alternation". Ayuso believes that the ground is being prepared "probably for elections", but above all to "continue burning the streets", and has stated that Sánchez needs people to feel the same hatred towards Spain that, in her opinion, he feels. "It is no longer a question of principles, of ideas, it is that he is doing a lot of harm," she warned.
In that framework, the Madrid leader has asked to prevent "sectarianism from being above everything", because, she said, "direct blows are being dealt to millions of people". "They are a minority, and if they were a majority they would go to the polls and be in parliaments, because all this is being promoted by Podemos, it is being moved by the ultra-left," she assessed.