Sánchez criticizes Abascal's support for machistas who cites released rapists and Díaz cries: "Don't laugh at us"

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has criticized the Vox leader, Santiago Abascal, "for supporting sexists" while the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has asked the Vox candidate not to minimize gender violence with a "Don't laugh at us".

In the second block of the three-way debate offered by RTVE this Wednesday, dedicated to social policy, the 'only yes is yes' law, gender violence and the trans law have focused a large part of the interventions.

Thus, the Vox candidate has criticized the Government for lowering the sentences of more than a thousand sexual offenders and the release of more than a hundred as a result of the entry into force of the 'only yes is yes' law, while Díaz has clashed with Abascal by reproaching him that his formation refuses to recognize gender violence.

To do this, he has shown a photo in which two Vox leaders could be seen laughing supposedly during a minute of silence for a woman victim of sexist violence. "I ask you not to laugh at us, stop playing at laughing at us," Díaz snapped at Abascal.

Faced with Abascal's accusation of "manipulating" the image shown by Díaz, the Sumar candidate exclaimed: "It was the minute of silence, a murdered woman." "You will say what you want, you can interrupt me as many times as you want. I am not afraid of you, Mr. Abascal", she has settled.

The Sumar candidate has also reminded Abascal of the 1,212 women murdered by their partners or ex-partners since there were records and reminded him that "in this country they kill us for being women", while recriminating him for trying to "repeal all the laws that give rights to women". For this reason, she has warned him that "the women of this country are not going to allow it."

"We are women and you, by denying violence against women, cause exactly this. Enough already, stop laughing at us, stop playing electoral games with women," the vice president reiterated.

Díaz has responded in this way after the Vox candidate has affirmed that the Government has "endangered the safety of women." "I don't know if you know who Daniel PJ is, I imagine not, but I'm going to tell you: he is a serial rapist who has raped 19 women and you have put him on the street; the last time he came out it took him less than a month and a half to rape again and you, like me, know that he will do it again," Abascal assured.

"WE HAVE MADE MISTAKES", SÁNCHEZ ADMITS

Sánchez, for his part, has reproached Abascal for "always supporting the macho". "We always defend women, we always and sometimes make mistakes, but you always make mistakes because you always support the macho, this is the reality," he said.

Likewise, it has condemned Vox for being excluded from the pact against gender violence, while reviewing the achievements of socialist governments in terms of equality. "The Socialist Party defines itself as a feminist party, we have been with the governments of Felipe González, with the governments of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, we have approved the law for the voluntary interruption of pregnancy, the law to combat gender violence, also the first parity government in history or the law on equality between men and women," added the PSOE candidate.

On this point, the President of the Executive has lamented that "after so many decades of struggle", he finds it "particularly painful that the first thing the Popular Party and Vox have agreed on, in the autonomous communities where they govern and in hundreds of town halls in Spain, is to attack the LGTBI collective, question gender violence when not deny it and, of course, censor culture".

For this reason, he has reiterated that these "rights do not belong to the Popular Party or Vox, they belong to millions of men and women for whom they have fought during 40 years of democracy." "And I am convinced that on July 23 they will not be taken away," he argued.

THE TRANS LAW "ERASES" WOMEN

Another of the laws that the Vox candidate has been especially critical of has been the Trans Law and has accused his opponents of "erasing" women with this rule. "If a man perceives himself as a female gender and hits his wife, that gender violence law does not protect her, thanks to its laws (men) can enter women's locker rooms and if a man perceives himself as a female gender, he can take away a position in the public service reserved for a woman," Abascal assured Díaz.

"What is a woman for you?" Abascal asked Sánchez and Díaz at this point in the debate, in which Díaz asked Abascal the same question. "Well, here it has remained in a draw, they are not going to answer it. But if you think that a man who perceives himself as a female gender is a woman, you are very wrong and put women at risk," said the leader of Vox.

In terms of education, Díaz has indicated that his formation defends "the improvement of public education." "What we also defend is that we be more European and that the high segregation that exists in Spain, in percentage terms, be eliminated. We want to dignify the conditions of teachers in public education in our country and make a network of canteens with healthy food that is public and that all extracurricular activities are public and free. Education is key to improving democracy in Spain to make us more equal," he listed.

Health has also slipped into the debate this Wednesday since Yolanda Díaz has indicated that Sumar seeks to "regulate a law on health waiting times" because, as she has warned, "waiting lists are the prelude to privatization".

"But more must be done, we have to place primary care at the center of the system," he added, lamenting that there are groups, such as housekeepers, pensioners or any worker who do not have sufficient resources to "go to the physio, for mental health care or to care for the oral health of their children". "We want these benefits to be part of the public health network", she has defended.

At this point, Sánchez has pointed out that "there are 90,000 more health professionals than in 2018" and has underlined the progress made in dependency, with nearly 600,000 more beneficiaries, among other "conquests" of the Socialist Party, such as "the public health law, the public education law, the voluntary termination of pregnancy law or the euthanasia law", among others.

For all this, he has reproached Abascal for proposing "cuts, that is, fewer teachers, less toilets, closures of schools, of primary care centers, which we are already seeing in some communities where they are co-governing."

"This is what Vox has brought to Spanish politics. Hate, insults and lies. And that is why you and the Popular Party are going to lose the elections," Sánchez concluded.