• Congress Vox's motion of censure against Pedro Sánchez fails with only 53 votes in favor against 201 against and 91 abstentions
  • Tamames motion closes the debate accusing the PSOE of returning to "the two Spains, worse than those of 36"

Full stop. The Popular Party seeks to quickly turn the page on the motion of censure and shelve 48 hours of political anger that, as they understand, has not contributed anything to the public debate. Quite the opposite, in fact: it has contributed, thanks to Vox, to the institutional erosion and to oxygenate the Executive, but it has not managed to wear down Alberto Núñez Feijóo despite the repeated attempts of the Government and Santiago Abascal to drag him to the core of the storm. Now, the PP focuses on resuming its political activity with an immediate leadership that contrasts with the "inexplicable gift" of Vox to the Government, which it plans to defeat "at the polls" in the following months.

The tone and presence of the popular during the parliamentary discussion of the Vox initiative has been testimonial and very restrained: Cuca Gamarra was one of the few spokespeople who yesterday rejected the turn of reply, while his party has kept a low profile on the motion. No disqualifications or praise. "He is not our candidate, it is not our story, it is not our project," synthesized the PP spokeswoman from the rostrum, where she thanked Ramón Tamames for his contribution to concord – some deputies, such as her or Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, applauded him even at the end – but refused to join this "inexplicable" strategy of Vox, which yesterday only received the support of former Citizens deputy Pablo Cambronero.

Opinion

Liberal comments.

The motion, a disaster that ended in a comeback

  • Writing: FEDERICO JIMÉNEZ LOSANTOS

The motion, a disaster that ended in a comeback

Free of brand.

United, out of scrambled

  • Writing: JAVIER REDONDO Madrid

United, out of scrambled

"We came out stronger from the motion. We return to the real Spain, "expressed with some relaxation and relief sources of the leadership of the PP yesterday, minutes after the Congress knocked down the candidacy of Ramón Tamames with the abstention of the popular and with hardly any scratches in the main opposition party, despite the attacks of one and the other. Now, Genoa seeks the contrast: to recover in a matter of hours the usual political activity, with a serious, moderate control plan for the Executive and with its sights set on the electoral calendar of the coming weeks.

A differentiated image of Vox, they think in the PP, which partly justifies the distance that Feijóo has taken from the parliamentary issue. The popular leader met yesterday with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in the framework of the summit of the European popular, in Brussels, far from the race of San Jerónimo and the "gresca" promoted by the PSOE and Vox, sentence in the PP.

A "noise" that has had as an implicit protagonist during these two days the leader of the opposition, despite not participating in the debate, not going to Congress and not even valuing the initiative presented by Vox. On the first day of debate, between Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz doubled the mentions to the PP – several of them direct to Feijóo – with respect to those of Vox, which was the party that launched the motion against the coalition government. Yesterday, the allusions were repeated again, this time even by Inés Arrimadas, of Ciudadanos, who reproached the opposition leader for not attending the meeting.

"Symptom of weakness"

The idea of the PP is to take advantage of this focus that other parties have put on them "symptom of weakness" on the part of the rest and of "centrality" by theirs, they repeat - to extol their figure as the alternative both to the current Government and to the other option that the right-wing voter has, which is Vox, and that, They calculate, it has suffered a political attrition with an inert motion and without any debate that, on the contrary, has allowed the leftist formations to deploy their programmatic proposals a few months before the regional and municipal elections in May.

The PP has felt "comfortable" in recent days leaving "the protagonism to others", explain from Genoa, but it is time to return to the political day to day with a proposal that clashes with the fragility and "nervousness" that Vox has shown with the design, organization and execution of the motion. Will it promote, then, the figure of Feijóo from now on? Feijóo does not hide, they respond from the heart of the party to clarify that the leader of the opposition fulfills his agenda as president of the party and as a senator, and that if he has not been part of that "gift" to the Executive in the form of a motion it is because it hardly contributes to improving the situation of the country, which is his priority objective.

Abstention, in any case, prevents the friction with Vox from avoiding a wound that conditions the rest of the election year. This position is the only one that fully represented the interests of the party: "We are not going to vote in favor out of respect for the Spaniards; we are not going to vote against it out of respect for you," Gamarra told Tamames yesterday.

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  • Motion of censure
  • Ramon Tamames
  • PP
  • Santiago Abascal Conde
  • Cuca Gamarra