He coordinated with Sumar to maintain both the same level in the debate: Yolanda Díaz would only come out if the president did so first.
MADRID, 26 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The acting president of the Government and general secretary of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, decided a few days ago to delegate to the former mayor of Valladolid Óscar Puente the intervention of the Socialist Group in the investiture debate of the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a decision that they maintained “encapsulated” and that only five or six people knew in advance.
According to socialist sources, the objective was for Óscar Puente to act as a ‘snow plow’, clearing up the debate and focusing it on issues such as who has the right to form a government, and the former mayor of Valladolid was ideal because he lost the baton of command despite having been the most voted at the polls on May 28.
Furthermore, he is a person of Pedro Sánchez’s trust, since he was spokesperson for one of his first Executives. Although over time he was relegated until he was outside the current leadership of the party.
Faced with the criticism of disdaining Parliament, the PSOE justify themselves by ensuring that it was Feijóo who has not respected the institutions by having spent the last few weeks doing nothing for his investiture and focusing on activities more typical of the opposition such as the organization of a demonstration, alluding to the one held against the amnesty.
To safeguard the surprise factor and try to dislodge Feijóo, the decision was kept in the core closest to Sánchez, his Moncloa collaborators. Yes, Puente, who had to prepare the speech, and the spokesperson, Patxi López, who was notified that he was not going to speak this Tuesday, should have known.
Of course, according to Sumar, the two parties in the coalition government had agreed to maintain the same institutional level in the debate: either they both removed members of the Executive or both delegated to the parliamentary group.
That is to say, if Pedro Sánchez had intervened in the debate, it was foreseeable that Yolanda Díaz would have carried Sumar’s voice. But since the PSOE opted for the parliamentary group, the confederal coalition delegated its spokesperson, Marta Lois. What Sumar was not informed was that not even Patxi López was going to intervene, but Óscar Puente.
In Moncloa they confirm that Pedro Sánchez will remain outside the entire investiture debate and that he will not participate in the second day or in the extra vote next Friday. According to what they point out, the president will speak when it is his turn, which will be in his own investiture debate.
Puente took the stand in place of Sánchez to “put all the contradictions of the PP leader in front of the mirror,” according to sources from the PSOE leadership.
In this way they intend to show that Feijóo is in a similar situation because, although the PP was the force with the most votes, it is not able to gain the majority necessary to govern. “From winner to winner, as Puente has rightly said, the house of cards of the PP’s argument falls without remedy,” they point out.