The PP and Vox met again this Friday after the banner of a police protest against the Government of Pedro Sánchez.
On this occasion, in the call by a platform of 13 unions and organizations of police and civil guards before the delegations and sub-delegations of the Government of all of Spain to request improvements in their salaries and retirement, to be declared a risky profession and more means in the fight against drug trafficking.
The concentrations have been marked by the recent murder of two civil guards in Barbate (Cádiz) after their boat was hit by a drug boat, who have been remembered with a minute of silence.
The general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, and the deputy and member of the Vox National Executive Committee Javier Ortega Smith were present at the protest in Madrid, although they avoided being photographed next to the banner.
During the rally in the capital, the more than fifty agents who participated raised numerous slogans against the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, whom they blamed for the traffic incident and called for his resignation.
Gamarra and Ortega Smith have supported this request in their statements, which has not prevented some of the protesters from reproaching them for their attempt to politicize the protest with cries of “less good words and more actions” or “the words are carries the air.”
The same police organizations have called a demonstration in Madrid for March 16 in which they will insist on a salary increase that the Government rejects considering that an agreement signed with the unions in 2018 has since translated into a higher increase in their salaries. at 35%.
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Police and civil guard organizations join the right-wing offensive against the amnesty law
Gamarra – at the head of a large PP delegation that included Borja Semper and Esteban González Pons – has charged against the Minister of the Interior, whom he has accused of “incapacity” and “insensitivity” and of clinging to his position.
“If he had any dignity left, if he had any shame left, he would have resigned by now.
But also, if Pedro Sánchez had a minimum of value left, if Marlasca has not resigned, he should have fired him already,” he added.
The popular leader has taken the opportunity to insist on the proposals that her party has made in recent days to combat drug trafficking in the Campo de Gibraltar, such as that the National Court always assume the investigation of these plots or that both police and police personnel be reinforced. of judges, prosecutors and Customs Surveillance officers in the area.
In this sense, the Interior has stressed in recent days that with the Sánchez Government the number of police and civil guards in Campo de Gibraltar has increased by 3,690 agents compared to the period of Mariano Rajoy's executive.
Gamarra has also asked the minister for “appropriate explanations” for the dissolution, in September 2022, of the so-called OCON-Sur, a Civil Guard body in charge of fighting drug trafficking in the Strait and whose disappearance the popular people link to an alleged increase in the activity of traffickers and, with it, the event of Barbate.
Ortega Smith has also demanded the resignation of Grande-Marlaska, whom he has accused of “abandonment” of the members of the security forces and of looking “the other way” in the face of his demands for better salaries and more resources in the face of what he has described of “narcoterrorism.”
However, the leader of the ultra party has extended his criticism to other events in recent months and has accused the Interior and, specifically, the Government delegate in Madrid, Francisco Martín, of giving “political orders to gas and shoot balls [ of rubber] against defenseless young people or elderly people” during the protests against the amnesty law in front of the federal headquarters of the PSOE, on Ferraz Street in Madrid.
The Vox leader has also taken the opportunity to accuse the subsidies of those he has called “puppeteers”, in reference to the Spanish film industry, and the amnesty bill.
Concentration this Friday before the Government delegation in Valencia of the Platform for a Dignified Retirement and Full Salary Equality. Biel Aliño (EFE)
The support of the PP and Vox for the protests of the police unions and civil guard associations - which have always considered the security forces and their families an important source of votes - is not new and was evidently manifested in the demonstration. police officer who walked the streets of Madrid on November 21, 2021 against the reform of the citizen security law (known as the
gag law
) that the PSOE and Unidas Podemos were then trying to agree on with their parliamentary partners.
The then leaders of the PP and Ciudadanos, Pablo Casado and Inés Arrimadas, respectively, and the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, attended that protest.
However, since then there had been a certain distancing between the right-wing parties and the police organizations, which had translated into their testimonial presence with second-rate leaders or even their absence in some of their most recent protests.
Even in May of last year, in a demonstration called in Madrid by Police Justice (Jupol) and Justice for the Civil Guard (Jucil), the majority organizations in both bodies, banners critical of the PP were seen, demanding to the leader of the party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a policy different from that applied at the time by Rajoy's Executive, with Juan Ignacio Zoido as Minister of the Interior.
In the case of Vox, the distancing has been even more pronounced, caused by the incident that Ortega Smith himself caused in one of the concentrations against the amnesty law on Ferraz Street.
Then, the leader of the ultra party and spokesperson for the Madrid City Council went to the protest escorted by several television cameras, in front of which he addressed the head of the police operation to warn him that he was there so that the police "do not exceed their limits." functions” and prevent “abuse of authority” by the agents of the Police Intervention Unit (UIP, popularly known as riot police).
Those words provoked a storm of criticism from the police unions, who considered that he was putting pressure on the officers.
This Friday was, in fact, the first time since then that Ortega Smith participated in a police protest.
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