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Sánchez and Feijóo finalize their only great pact before a very tough electoral race

2022-10-16T16:00:19.532Z


The agreement of the Judicial Power is not closed but it is taken for granted in both parties despite the new political duel on Tuesday in the Senate


It has taken almost four years, a change of leadership six months ago at the top of the PP and, above all, the resignation of the president of the Supreme Court, Carlos Lesmes, with an unprecedented institutional crisis, so that for the first time both in the Government as well as the main opposition party insist that this time is the right one and that the pact to renew the General Council of the Judiciary is imminent.

It does not seem that it can be closed this weekend, and not even the date of Tuesday, with a decisive debate in the Senate between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, is assumed as an inexcusable time limit, but both sides admit that things are going well, negotiations are progressing and, above all, they assume that any other option would be a huge scandal.

Facing the precipice,

Both sides seem to have given up on something.

It will be the first great pact between Sánchez and Feijóo on the eve of the long, uncertain and complex electoral campaign that is looming throughout 2023 and in which both risk the future of their careers.

With a headless and discredited Judicial Branch as the governing body of the judges, no longer a president, with its council irremediably broken, which even discusses the formula for seeking an interim successor and has not been able to agree on renewing the Constitutional Court for more Within a month, the image of a new split between the two major parties would be unsustainable.

And the pressure is strong especially for the PP, which has managed to block the renewal for almost four years but is now beginning to suffer with the resignation of Lesmes, a man very close to this party, who elected him as president of the CGPJ and now he sees how he resigns fed up with that long conflict.

Feijóo, in addition, had carved out with his four absolute majorities as president of the Xunta de Galicia a prestige as an institutional politician,

solvent, management and State that wants to export at the national level to oppose Sánchez and for which the breach of its constitutional duties on the judiciary does not help at all.

This deterioration also harms the Government due to the bad image of Spain in Brussels.

Sánchez and Feijóo, after a meeting in La Moncloa last Monday that went much better than expected, are now finalizing the details of this agreement with their main negotiators, Félix Bolaños and Esteban González Pons.

It will be his first State pact and probably the last important one before a very long dog-fight campaign in which a good part of the Spanish political power will be played all or nothing during 2023, since between the municipal and regional elections of June and the general scheduled for December will decide the real power structure for the coming years in Spain.

The polls will thus solve the future of the two major parties and even of the multi-party structure that emerged in 2015 and that could change its configuration a lot in these elections,

Bolaños and Pons have been in permanent contact all week, exchanging profiles, names, commitments to draft a written document that sanctions the agreement, and also the possible "landing strips" to provide the most conservative sector of the PP and its environment, who has been pressuring Pablo Casado for years before and Feijóo now, so that they do not agree on anything with Sánchez, and that now they will have to digest this turn that will mean agreeing on a CGPJ with a slight progressive majority compared to the current one, extended from 2018, of conservative domain.

The imminent pact will finally be resolved on the distribution already fixed more than a year ago with the current law between the same representatives of the Government of Sánchez with the then Casado PP, with 10 progressive members, another ten conservatives,

In fact, United We Can, which hopes to be able to include two people proposed by them in that council, insists that it will not accept any veto and Feijóo's PP no longer battles that demand, which raises quite a few suspicions in the previous and disgraced party leadership.

The last negotiation, in 2021, was broken by the PP's veto of the United We Can proposal to include Judge José Ricardo De Prada among the members, one of the three who signed the sentence in the Gürtel case that precipitated the motion of censure that He kicked Mariano Rajoy out of power and brought Sánchez to La Moncloa for the first time.

Neither the PP nor the PSOE now mention anything about De Prada.

The scenario is different and all the parties seem more flexible, and above all, this time, at least the government sources consulted reached that conclusion, Feijóo showed at La Moncloa before Sánchez a determined will to renew.

In the PP they do not deny that disposition.

In the Government they think that the PP can no longer withstand the pressure of its own judicial world, which the resignation of Lesmes has evidenced.

In the PP of Feijóo they defend that "the pressure is on the Government", they argue that no one on the street will bill them for this institutional crisis and they are aware that after the renewal they will lose their current influence in that judicial body, at a time when which several relevant trials are approaching that affect the corruption of his party.

They hope to correct this disproportion if they win and reach La Moncloa.

The story about that "landing strip" of why the agreement is reached now that Bolaños and Pons are looking for may include some kind of commitment to "study" a change in the CGPJ's election formula so that the judges have "more weight" that now in the designation of 12 of the 20 members, as the PP demands and the European Commission advises.

Now they have an indirect influence, because Congress can only choose those 12 from a list of 51 candidates drawn up among judges.

But the government insists, and Sánchez made it very clear to journalists on Wednesday, that there will be no commitment to radical change in the system.

The government sources consulted believe that this time the PP will agree to renew and leave the reform of the model for later, if they once again have an absolute majority to do it alone or with Vox,

as Feijóo has promised when introducing that demand in his next electoral program.

The PP had that opportunity alone twice - in the legislatures from 2000 to 2004 and from 2011 to 2015 - and did not modify that method that it now rejects.

Sánchez defends that this law has worked since 1985 and is opposed to the fact that the judges directly elect 12 of the 20 members, which would almost automatically give the majority to the conservatives forever, no matter what happens at the polls, because they dominate the judicial career.

A possible solution would be to grant the Council a greater role in the design of the new body or even in its preparation.

Sánchez defends that this law has worked since 1985 and is opposed to the fact that the judges directly elect 12 of the 20 members, which would almost automatically give the majority to the conservatives forever, no matter what happens at the polls, because they dominate the judicial career.

A possible solution would be to grant the Council a greater role in the design of the new body or even in its preparation.

Sánchez defends that this law has worked since 1985 and is opposed to the fact that the judges directly elect 12 of the 20 members, which would almost automatically give the majority to the conservatives forever, no matter what happens at the polls, because they dominate the judicial career.

A possible solution would be to grant the Council a greater role in the design of the new body or even in its preparation.

For the Government of Sánchez, this agreement is decisive.

So much so that he has chosen to maintain a strict pact of silence for him to come out.

With this renewal, even if it is four years late, the Executive is guaranteed a progressive majority both in the Council -although decisions will have to be made by consensus of 3/5, something that has already been happening up to now with the main appointments and has not prevented the conservatives from achieving primacy in them - as in the Constitutional Court, 7-5.

The Conservatives have dominated this key body, which will decide on resources for the abortion or euthanasia law, for the last nine years, since the previous renewal of the two members corresponding to the Government, in 2013, and which is the one that usually alter the majority towards who is in the Executive,

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-10-16

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