After more than two months of doubts and uncertainty, Vox has finally announced this Wednesday, through a press release and a tweet on its official account, that the economist and former leader of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) Ramón Tamames, from 89 years old, he will be the candidate for the motion of censure that the ultra party will present on Monday in the registry of Congress.
The motion will be signed only by the 52 Vox deputies, since Abascal's group has not managed to get any other parliamentarian to join.
Tamames' candidacy has been made official after he met at the Vox national headquarters, on Bambú street in Madrid, with Abascal himself, his general secretary, Ignacio Garriga, and his spokesman in Congress, Iván Espinosa de the Monteros.
Members of his team attended on behalf of the nominee: Christian Careaga, Vicente Dalda, Lorenzo Garrido, Tomás Prieto-Castro, José Ignacio Rodrigo, Emmanuel Tamames and Moncho Tamames, the latter son of the candidate;
as well as the writer Fernando Sánchez-Dragó, a friend of the economist and of Abascal, who has acted as a bridge between the two.
After its admission for processing by the Congress Table, the call for plenary session to debate the motion of censure will remain in the hands of the president of the lower house, Meritxell Batet.
According to article 176 of the regulations of the Congress, during the 48 hours following its admission to processing, alternative motions may be presented, and the voting of all of them may not take place before five days have elapsed since the presentation of the first one;
that is, from March 4.
Abascal announced the presentation of the motion of no confidence on December 9, assuring that it would be headed by "a neutral candidate, with government experience, who is not a member of any party and is committed to calling immediate elections."
For several weeks, the Vox leader tried to convince the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to support his initiative or present his own, but he dismissed the maneuver as counterproductive and only offered him his abstention.
On January 24, during a debate in Congress, President Pedro Sánchez mocked Abascal, ironically saying that the very serious danger to the unity of Spain that he denounced should not be so imminent when the presentation of his initiative was taken with such parsimony.
"Wake up, time is running out," he snapped.
Sources close to the Vox leadership had admitted days before that Abascal was inclined to give up the initiative and let it sleep in a drawer.
According to the Vox statement, Abascal has assured that, with this announcement, he "complies with his word and with his commitment to present an independent candidate" for the presidency of the Government.
The official nomination by the ultra party has been precipitated after
El Mundo
published that Tamames had accepted the offer that Abascal made him weeks ago.
The economist has assured in recent weeks that he does not share many of Vox's postulates, but maintains that it is a constitutional party and that the "seriousness" of the current situation pushed him to take this step.
In his opinion, the Government of Pedro Sánchez has agreed with parties that "want to break Spain" and end the Monarchy;
and, in his opinion, the separation of powers is also in danger, since the executive branch has appropriated the legislative branch and "is doing it with the judicial branch."
The recent reform of the Criminal Code is, in his opinion, "a tailor-made suit for some gentlemen who, according to the Supreme Court, have committed a crime."
The spokesperson for the Socialist Group, Patxi López, has expressed in Talavera (Toledo) his "respect" for the motion of censure, recalling that it is a "very serious constitutional instrument", and has recalled that, in the Spanish legal system, this is posed “positively”;
that is, they not only have to present a candidate but also a government alternative.
"We are finally going to find out about the hidden plan of the right in this country," he added, after recalling that Núñez Feijóo ate with Tamames and "secretly met" with Abascal, "it is supposed to prepare the plan that we are now going to know".
The national spokesperson for CS, Patricia Guasp, has announced that her formation will vote no, assuring on Twitter that "Vox's motion is as useless as its policies."
The motion of censure is the second registered by Vox to kick Sánchez out of the government.
The first, in October 2020, only got the support of the 52 deputies from his group.
The rest of the parties in the lower house, including the PP, voted against.
The candidate then, Santiago Abascal, obtained the poorest result of the five motions of censure that have been presented in four decades of democracy.
The new motion of censure of the training has little chance of success.
The president of the popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has already conveyed to the possible candidate that he would not have his support and that he will abstain in the future vote.
Of the five motions of censure presented since the restoration of democracy, only one achieved its objective: that of Pedro Sánchez against Mariano Rajoy, in June 2018. Before that, those of Felipe González (PSOE) against Adolfo Suárez (UCD) failed in 1980, that of Antonio Hernández Mancha (Popular Alliance) against González in 1987, and that of Pablo Iglesias (UP) against Mariano Rajoy in 2017.