The former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero opened the 15th Congress of the PSC this Friday, supporting Salvador Illa in his dual capacity as first secretary and candidate for the Catalan elections on May 12.
Chance has it that this Friday's conclave, planned for months, has coincided with the call for early elections and with the approval of the amnesty law in Congress.
Before more than 1,200 delegates, Zapatero has deployed a fiery defense of this norm and has stated that the elections will be the “most important in 25 years in Catalonia and Spain.”
The former president has predicted Illa's victory and maintained that he has the virtue of making voters from "right or left and nationalist or not" feel comfortable with him.
“Catalonia has the immense opportunity to open a definitive stage of coexistence, plurality and recognition of diversity,” he stated.
Under the motto
Ara touches Catalonia
, the congress had its most relevant moment this Friday with the speech of Zapatero, who joked about the fact that it was held two days after the call by Pere Aragonès —“you were calculating the dates”, has said—and that the party has given only 24 hours to the socialist delegates to aspire to be candidates.
After the joke, Zapatero stated that never before in a campaign has he seen a candidate with “such solid, authentic, credible and winning” leadership.
“Illa is capable of building, of having common sense, of not confronting, willing to add and banishing resentment,” said Zapatero, inviting the rest of the forces to sportingly accept the future victory of the PSC.
“How many Salvadores Illa does Spanish politics need: let's see if the PP takes note,” he said.
After assuming the leadership of the PSC to replace Miquel Iceta in a congress in 2021, Illa has led a party that has chained three consecutive victories: in the regional elections of 2021 and then in the municipal elections and in the general elections of 2023 in which he achieved more than a million votes and 19 seats.
His objective now is to take the step and be able to govern the Generalitat.
Without any opposition, Illa was the only socialist who presented his candidacy to be first secretary - therefore he is already elected although the congress must ratify it - and he will be designated this Saturday as a candidate.
His objective is to open a new stage in Catalonia to leave the process behind.
“Neither Catalonia nor Spain deserves to be paralyzed in a 2017 from which we want to turn the page to open a new political chapter in Catalonia,” he exclaimed in his management report, praising the benefits of the amnesty law that he opposed before the 23rd. -J.
With the entire party focused on the pre-campaign convinced that they can govern, Zapatero has shown his “absolute conviction” that the “reasonable” amnesty law will enter “the pages of history” and has indicated that it reflects the best spirit of the Constitution by being based on “concord” and “reconciliation” in addition to being one more step towards stability and reunion.
“The best democracies are willing to reconcile and defend the rights of the minority and those who feel different.
It is quite disheartening that the PP and the right do not lend a hand," said Zapatero, recalling that it is not something new in the trajectory of the right, pointing out that he supported the Aznar Government in the fight against ETA and that he later encouraged the "theory of the conspiracy", now reduced to a "footnote", so as not to accept its electoral defeat in 2004. Or like when the PSC supported the application of 155 so that the situation in 2017 would return to normal.
“It is quite discouraging that the PP and the right do not lend a hand,” says the former president of the Government about the amnesty.
“We have to take one more step”
After stating that he is willing to participate in the campaign, Zapatero has stated that after the amnesty “it is time to take one more step”, which will not be the last, he said, for the reunion.
“We have never believed that criminal law can replace politics.
The more criminal law, the longer it takes for politics to achieve the objectives of democracy and reconciliation,” he noted.
The former president concluded by pointing out that his defense of the amnesty is also based on the fact that the socialists want to confront their political rivals “on equal terms.”
“We don't want anyone to say they can't do it because they defend other ideas.
We do not want heroes or martyrs,” he said in reference to Carles Puigdemont, who is considering being a candidate.
“We want responsible politicians who win or lose at the polls and accept the electoral result.”
The PSOE has high hopes for Illa after having suffered successive electoral defeats such as the recent one in Galicia.
Jaume Collboni, mayor of Barcelona, has predicted that the 15th congress will be remembered as “the one of victory.”
The first mayor, who now governs with a majority as fragile as the one supported by Pere Aragonès's executive, has expressed his confidence that the new elections will allow the Government he needs to be on the other side of the Plaza de Sant Jaume.
“Our DNA is left-wing Catalanism.
We are the central party and we are going to open a new stage and overcome the years of the process,” he said, ensuring that Illa will be the president of all Catalans, something that, in his opinion, has not happened since José Montilla was president of the Generalitat.
You can follow EL PAÍS Catalunya on
and
X
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_