Feijóo runs out of the "changes of opinion" wildcard for Sánchez: amnesty and electoral fraud

How many months has the Popular Party, with Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the helm, been criticizing Pedro Sánchez and the Government's changes of opinion? The criticism is legitimate, of course, because even Pedro Sánchez himself admitted that he changed his mind. He therefore acknowledged these changes in position.

But what is not legitimate — moreover, what is absurd at a strategic level — is to criticize what is finally done. And the Popular Party, in just one week, has changed its mind twice. And also on relevant issues, on important issues of its own electoral program.

The first, with the so-called Grandchildren's Law. You already know that it is a new legislative norm promoted by the Government of Spain, the Government of Pedro Sánchez, to recognize nationality to the descendants of Spaniards who had to go into exile due to the Civil War and the subsequent Franco dictatorship. People who had to leave Spain due to political, ideological, religious persecution or for their sexual orientation, among other reasons.

Now, with that law, the aim is to grant nationality, by urgent means, to the grandchildren of those Spaniards who had to go into exile.

The Popular Party, logically, supported this idea. Because I believe it is a law that everyone, regardless of whether they are right-wing or left-wing, can applaud. It is a matter of humanity: to recognize nationality to the descendants of those who had to go into exile due to persecution during the Franco dictatorship and the Civil War.

In fact, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in 2022, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, literally assumed "the commitment of the Popular Party to promote a nationality law for the grandchildren of Spaniards abroad." That was the commitment of the newly arrived national president of the Popular Party.

Not only Feijóo. Ester Muñoz, spokesperson for the Popular Party, also defended the Grandchildren's Law with these words: "This parliamentary group considers that it is fair that all the grandchildren of those Spanish citizens who had to or wanted to go into exile can now access full nationality that is in their origins."

Well, now the Grandchildren's Law seems to be, according to the Popular Party, a form of electoral engineering invented by Pedro Sánchez to rig the electoral census.

This is what they are stirring up now. They are once again stirring up, in a very deceitful way, the ghost of electoral fraud. A ghost that the far-right in Spain was stirring up, copying Donald Trump. And remember how that ended: in the assault on the Capitol, when Trump claimed that the elections had been rigged. The assault on the Capitol was the most serious thing that has happened in US democracy.

Now the Popular Party, copying the far-right, copying Vox in Spain, is stirring up the ghost of electoral fraud with a Grandchildren's Law that, as you have just seen and heard, they even applauded through Ester Muñoz. And they do it, moreover, mixing the Grandchildren's Law with the CERA vote, with the postal vote or even with the regularization of immigrants, which are completely different things.

But the Popular Party has not only changed its mind on this in less than a week and a half. It can also be said that it has politically amnestied Carles Puigdemont. This very week, a few days ago, Alberto Núñez Feijóo said in Catalonia that one must look to the future. And not only him. Also the number two of the Popular Party at the national level, Miguel Tellado, general secretary of the party, said that "like most Catalans, we also want to turn the page". He added, moreover: "We are in the year 2026 and what happened in Catalonia in the year 2017 happened in the year 2017."

This is what the Popular Party says now. Feijóo and Miguel Tellado say it, evidently, in a clear desire to gain the support of Junts, to change the parliamentary arithmetic and to get Junts to support, at least on some occasions, the Popular Party again.

It is a clear nod to Carles Puigdemont and Junts. That is to say, from the fateful, disastrous and horrible "political corruption" that, according to the PP, the amnesty law entailed; from wanting to put Carles Puigdemont in jail and repeating it systematically, they now say that one must look to the future. In short, if that is not a change of opinion, may God come and see it.

It is very good that the PP criticizes Pedro Sánchez's changes of opinion. It is evident that Sánchez has changed his mind and I also criticized it at the time. But what is not coherent —what in my town is rather called hypocrisy— is to criticize what is finally done.

The PP has absolutely and totally lost the legitimacy to criticize Sánchez for his changes of opinion. In just a week and a half, it has changed its position twice, and moreover on core issues of its electoral program.