The national spokesman and deputy secretary of Culture and Sport of the Popular Party, Borja Sémper, accused unions this Wednesday of promoting a "political" general strike with the aim of "favoring" the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, in the midst of the election campaign. The spokeswoman for the Popular Group in Congress, Ester Muñoz, expressed herself in similar terms, calling the call a "political strike managed" by the Executive "against the opposition."
After the deputy general secretary of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, admitted that it is a strike "against the opposition," Sémper maintained that "the partisan use of the union movement does a disservice to the credibility of unions," considering that the protest responds to a political strategy.
In an interview on RNE, Borja Sémper pointed out that "there have been more than enough reasons to demonstrate in defense of workers' rights and they have not done so," which is why he framed the current call as an "eminently political decision" with the intention of "favoring Pedro Sánchez's political action."
Ester Muñoz speaks of "instrumentalization"
For her part, Ester Muñoz questioned that the campaign director of the Socialist Party herself maintains that "it is a campaign against the PP and not against the Government," when, as she recalled, strikes are usually directed against the Executive.
"When the Government promotes strikes against the opposition, that is called something else and does not happen in democratic countries," said the parliamentary spokeswoman in an interview on Antena 3.
Muñoz defended that it is "a political strike managed from the instances of the Government and power," and added that "you can be in favor of it or you can be against it, but that it is political, I believe that no one believes otherwise."
The PP leader stressed that "it is no coincidence that in eight years the unions have not called any general strike," "as if workers had not suffered," and criticized that "now suddenly, in the middle of the election campaign, they call a general strike."
In that context, he has stated that it is “evident” that “people live worse than three years ago” and that Sánchez’s Government “has destroyed the middle class” in Spain, although he has insisted that what “is unacceptable” is the “instrumentalization” of people. For this reason, he has considered it “important that people go to vote on November 29,” because, in his opinion, “it does not matter who governs.”
The PP questions the path of housing decrees
Furthermore, Borja Sémper has described as a “democratic absurdity” that the Executive brings the housing decrees that the Plenary of Congress rejected just a week ago to the Permanent Deputation. The popular leader has warned that a “disturbing” precedent is being set and has reproached Pedro Sánchez for justifying this “maneuver.”
Given the Prime Minister’s statement that “Parliament turns its back on the people,” Sémper reminded him that his own legitimacy as head of the Executive “is based on the fact that Parliament itself invested him.” “This is a kind of removable use of the legitimacy of the Congress of Deputies,” he maintained.
Along the same lines, Ester Muñoz has assured that it is a “political maneuver” and has recalled that royal decree-laws are designed for “situations of extreme and urgent necessity,” something that, she has argued, does not occur in this case because Pedro Sánchez has been in government for almost eight years and has done “nothing.” She has also pointed out that there is a “fraud of law” because “the same decree-law, with some technical corrections, has just been overturned by Parliament.”
Muñoz has stressed that with Sánchez, citizens “have a much harder time accessing housing, whether for rent or for sale,” and has remarked that, before the arrival of the PSOE in Moncloa, housing was “the 16th problem for Spaniards,” while now it occupies the first place.
Puigdemont, the amnesty and the Constitutional Court
Asked about the possible influence on the vote of the decision of the Constitutional Court on the amnesty of the former Catalan president who fled justice, Carles Puigdemont, Borja Sémper has considered that it will be “very relative,” because, in his opinion, “everything that had to mobilize” is already “quite clear.”
Regarding whether the amnesty for the leaders of the procés has resolved a political conflict, the national spokesman for the PP has stated that “what happened in Catalonia was an assault on constitutionality” carried out by a Government that “tried to subvert the constitutional order and override the plurality and the acceptance of Catalonia's plurality.”
In his opinion, that movement was stopped by “the reality” of Catalan plurality and by the application of the Rule of Law. Furthermore, he highlighted that the most relevant aspect of the Constitutional Court's decision is that it has endorsed amnestying the “misappropriation of public funds” which, he said, Catalan leaders used to achieve “a partisan political objective.”
Finally, Borja Sémper concluded that “the amnesty and everything surrounding the amnesty process is a profound political error that sets a negative precedent in a rule of law state like Spain.”
