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September 5. Congress of Deputies. The meeting of the teams of the PSOE and United We can begin to try an investiture agreement. Vice President Carmen Calvo opens the meeting with a long intervention on the different political cultures of the PSOE and Unidos Podemos. Remember Julio Anguita , the leader of the PCE , who, through a "clamp" with the "right," cornered the Socialists. «As a party, we have very hard experiences with what you represent».

September, 10th. The meeting of the negotiating commissions ends in another failure. The representatives of United We can ask the Socialists when they will see each other again. The vice president tells Pablo Echenique: "Pablo, until you call me and officially tell me that you are resigning from the coalition government, we will not sit down again."

Between one date and another, there are nine hours of meetings that are really disagreements. On one side of the table, Vice President Carmen Calvo, spokeswoman Adriana Lastra and Minister María Jesús Montero. On the other, Pablo Echenique, Ione Belarra, Yolanda Díaz, Juancho López de Uralde, Enrique Santiago and Jaume Asens , representatives of United Podemos and their confluences.

Sitting at the same table, the 140-year history of the PSOE and the five years of United We Can. Nine hours of debate, conversations, controversies, reproaches, disputes, pleas, petitions, disagreements, discussions and dialectical struggles. Nine hours of sincerity, of not being silent on both sides, of trying to convince the other of his own arguments by deploying all the weapons of politics and rhetoric.

This newspaper has consulted with the protagonists of the meetings of a so-called negotiation, destined to fail from the first moment because between the two positions a midpoint was not possible. The Socialists wanted United We can renounce the coalition government and Podemos sought to resume the coalition negotiation where it was shipwrecked at the endowment of July. United sources We can thus summarize the attitude of the socialists. «The meetings were an example of antipolitics, the vice president monopolized the interventions, she barely allowed a trick, not even her own. Shattering and provoking, with inaccuracies and manual arguments. They had a deliberate provocation strategy, what they were looking for was to get up from the table, telling us all kinds of barbarities, while we listened to unbelievers. Everything was no, no and no. Either you go through the hoop or there is nothing to do. We were surprised by the little finesse, the little finesse, at least the door slam could have been more elegant. They were only looking for our surrender. We sinned to be naive in thinking that there was a true will of an agreement. There was none, we thought that in September Pedro Sánchez could take advantage of the possibility of negotiating a government more calmly than in July and we finally realized that he always opted for electoral repetition. Repetition of elections is irresponsibility; at the meetings, they recognized that the majority of the Senate is in danger ».

We can accuse the PSOE of seeking to get up from the table with provocations

The PSOE interlocutors have another version of the same meetings. «United Podemos, which comes from a political culture of the PCE, speaks and acts as if it were the true left and does not understand or assume that the left they represent is a minority, that the progressive project is led by the PSOE, and that they cannot sit with us on an equal level when more than 80 seats separate us. They do not admit the place where the voters have put them. The minority can never impose their conditions on the majority. Those are the rules of democracy. We are playing with very different weapons. They play improvisation, they are not serious, they do not know what a government is, and we have to defend the institutionality of the Government of Spain, we cannot risk it ».

Socialists say they improvise, are not serious and do not know what a government is

These are some of the passages of the nine hours of meetings that THE WORLD has been able to reconstruct in conversation with the protagonists of the disagreement.

United We can: «You have separated from the Government the leader of our party, something unprecedented, almost a humiliation».

PSOE: «You have subjected the leader of our party to brutal political attrition in the investiture of July. That doesn't worry you, but it has consequences. In politics, times and their consequences matter ».

United We can: «What is the third way that Pedro Sánchez has proposed? What are the institutions in which we can participate?

PSOE: «State institutions where you could control the government's actions. For example, an office to supervise the Ministry of Finance . But you have to assume that in economic matters many differences separate us and that we need to agree on certain policies with Citizens or with the PP ».

United We can: "We cannot accept the contempt you show towards our nearly four million voters." PSOE: «We don't play with sentimentality. We have never said that your demand to enter the government is a humiliation for our voters, which are many more. This type of argument does not serve to govern with stability and seriousness, which is the sole objective of the PSOE ».

United We Can: «The Coalition Government is the most sensible thing, the only thing that can guarantee the political stability of Spain. In a context of worsening economy and complications in the EU, how do you want to be alone and govern with 123 seats? It is irresponsibility. Do you really want to rule? Why in the communities are coalitions possible and not in the Government?

PSOE: “We cannot accept at all that the only democratic way out is a coalition government, neither history nor politics support that claim. The Government of Spain is a very different thing from those of the communities. We are a 140-year-old party, we are obliged to defend the institutionality of the Government of the nation, we cannot assume a government at any price.

United We can: «We have to put an end to this anomaly in Spain, which is the fights on the left and the lack of understanding. The anomaly that the left of the PSOE cannot enter the Government ».

PSOE: «That is not an anomaly, it is the result of the political action of the culture of communism. United We have to understand that the PSOE is the one who leads the progressive project in Spain and respect the electoral result ».

PSOE: "Why didn't you accept the coalition government offer that we made the effort to propose to you with great generosity?"

United We can: «We only had 48 hours of margin. It did not give us time for serious negotiation for a coalition government. We all found ourselves overwhelmed and lost control over a last minute situation.

PSOE: «You let your opportunity pass, a generous offer, with important portfolios. We can't help you fix that mistake. We made it clear in July, the president made it clear that there would be no September. You don't know what a government is.

United We can: «We have negotiated the Budgets with you, and we do know what a Government is. What will happen in the electoral repetition? We can be in the same circumstances as now. And we will have to sit down again.

In the room where the meetings were held, the shadows of Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias, the heads of ranks of both delegations, always floated. Your strategies and your personalities. Different, but the same at one point. Its condition of resistant who believe they have overcome very powerful forces. This tension is about to be channeled in the calling of the fourth elections in four years.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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