The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and his candidate for the vote of no confidence that will be debated next week, Ramón Tamames, have made an effort this Thursday to minimize the importance of the political differences between the two, which have become clear in the interviews granted by the second in recent weeks.
"There may be discrepancies, but there are very important coincidences and I feel comfortable in a motion of no confidence in which 52 Vox deputies present me, because we agree on the essentials," said the economist and former leader of the PCE at a press conference. together in Congress.
Those coincidences, he added, focus on the unity of Spain, the parliamentary Monarchy and the flag.
Abascal, for his part, has dismissed the discrepancies as "irrelevant" and has ironically congratulated the journalists for the "sagacity" of having certified that Tamames is not from Vox, but independent, as he himself promised when he announced his parliamentary initiative in December past.
"At no time," he has assured emphatically, has he considered withdrawing it, despite the discomfort of followers of the ultra party with the positions publicly defended by his candidate, which he has denied.
"I am surprised that they know Vox voters better than their leaders," he said.
Both have also made an effort to downplay the importance of the early publication in
eldiario.es
of a first draft of the speech that Tamames planned to deliver next Tuesday, the latter assuring that it is a "quite outdated version", but acknowledging that there will not be many variations in his final speech, although he will develop some sections.
Abascal has added that "there is no evil that does not come for good" and that having the text so far in advance should serve so that groups that have announced that they will abstain, alluding to the PP, "can reflect and change the meaning of their vote" .
Tamames thanked for this advance so that everyone, including deputies, can prepare and better understand what he will try to express in his speech this coming Tuesday, March 21.
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Abascal and Tamames have praised each other.
The former has praised the latter for accepting the "patriotic challenge" of standing for the motion of no confidence, despite being the victim of alleged "unprecedented media harassment and scrutiny" about which the professor has never complained.
The latter has assured that the Vox leader deserves "immense respect" for his "courage" in the Basque Country during "the years of lead", at the time of the most active ETA terrorism.
In Vox, several leaders, such as Abascal and Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, have accused some media of editing the interviews with Tamames to always highlight their distance.
The professor, however, declared this Thursday that he did not feel manipulated in those interviews.
Regarding global warming, a problem to which he has dedicated four books and whose existence Vox denies, Tamames has been convinced that it is a matter of time: "Almost all Spaniards will agree in 10 years that this is one of the biggest problems we have."
The Vox candidate has indicated that he has studied the position of that formation on this issue and has observed that 80% of the affiliates of that ultra formation do understand that "a rise in temperatures" is taking place, without the need to go further in depth on semantic issues.
In the leadership of Vox they defend that Tamames has not watched his program in this regard.
Asked by the Vox candidate why it is so urgent to advance the general elections by six months – they are scheduled for December and Vox has promised to hold them in May if the motion is successful – he replied: “Tempus
fugit
.
Time goes by.
The time is gold.
We can not lose more time".
And it has justified that urgency in which the current government is about to break the single Social Security fund to please the Basque nationalists, to convert the use of Spanish in Catalonia into a "slang" or to reach an agreement on the Gibraltar situation that "may be vexatious".
At that point, he concluded: "In the 21st century, a European colony is a shame, colonies outside, Gibraltar inside."
The candidate Ramón Tamames (left), together with the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, this Thursday in Congress.Andrea Comas
Tamames did not want to subscribe to Abascal's phrase that the Sánchez Executive is "the worst that Spain has had in the last 80 years", which includes those of the Franco dictator, and has replied: "I am not sure that it is the worst, but yes one of the worst”.
The Vox leader, for his part, has avoided denying that, before Tamames, they had made the offer to other people who refused it.
“We have never said [that there were other candidates].
We have not announced it ”, he has limited himself to saying.
Tamames has denied importance to his advanced age, he is 89 years old ("age is an issue that heals itself") and has ruled out calling the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, with whom he has a good personal relationship, to change the abstention for a positive vote, because the motion "is already in discount time, there is no place anymore."
What he has advanced is that he will call on the "constitutional parties" -among which he has included the PSOE, PP and Vox himself- to give him their support and he has been convinced that, if the vote were secret instead of nominal, it would get many more votes than it will.
Vox, which prevents journalists from Grupo Prisa, editor of EL PAÍS, and other media from accessing the press conferences it holds at its headquarters, has not been able to impose any veto this time when the appearance in Congress was held of Deputies.
However, the party's press officer, Juan E. Plüger, has denied the floor to EL PAÍS, which had repeatedly requested it throughout the press conference, and has acknowledged that he was preventing this medium from asking on the grounds that " manipulate”.
In the midst of the incident, Tamames asked the EL PAÍS journalist to come to the table to ask the question, while Abascal walked away.
Asked if he is not afraid of being used electorally by Vox just over two months after the May 28 elections,
He has responded that his commitment is to expose what the problems of Spain are before the deputies.
In the direction of Vox they have later qualified that their intention was to grant all the questions that were raised and that it had been the candidate who had asked to end the intervention.
From the seat of Abascal
After the press conference, the candidate and the parliamentary spokesman for Vox, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, held a brief meeting with the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, to address logistical and organizational issues for the debate that begins next Tuesday.
According to sources from the Chamber, Tamames has requested to intervene from Abascal's seat, which is on a bench in the third row and with several steps, and not from the speakers' rostrum or from the foot of it, as had been initially proposed. , to avoid having to travel every time you have to answer to a spokesperson.
Batet has agreed to the request.
Parliamentary sources have interpreted that Vox "wants to short-cut" the candidate, even physically, so that he does not stand out too much in the reply turn.
Abascal and Tamames arrive at the press conference in Congress.
In the background, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, deputy in the lower house of Vox. Andrea Comas
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