• Investiture Pedro Sánchez despises Congress by sending Óscar Puente to give the reply to Feijóo and dodges a debate on amnesty
  • Congreso Feijóo points against Sánchez and amnesty: "I will not do it because I have principles, limits and word" and calls Puente's speech a "comedy club"

The decision was made a few days ago. "With enough time for it to go well." A decision with the approval of Pedro Sánchez. "It is always the president who decides," they note in their team. That Óscar Puente, former mayor of Valladolid, would be the one who gave the reply to Alberto Núñez Feijóo "five or six people knew". "Those who knew it can be counted on the fingers of one hand," says a person close to Sánchez. At the early meeting of the Socialist parliamentary group, MPs were not told who would speak. Hermetics. Secrecy. "You couldn't tell because it leaked." "A gimmicky blow, but that can also have contraindications," admit socialist sources.

Because the decision for Sánchez to avoid the face-to-face with Feijóo and starring a deputy was a double-edged sword. The socialist leader did intervene in the motion of censure promoted by Vox, and starring Ramón Tamames, who was also known to have no chance. But yesterday they opted for a Socialist deputy to do so.

"The tone has also been very internal"; "A speech to motivate the party," say officials of the formation consulted by this newspaper. "For my taste too hard unnecessarily in some parts," dissects a socialist baron. Government sources concede that it could have been a "hurtful" intervention, but "because of the crudeness of what he was saying."


ALBUM

Congress.

The protagonists of the investiture session

  • Writing: EL MUNDO

The protagonists of the investiture session

"The lack of respect is theirs, for asking for more than a month, for appealing to fugitives ... The position has been set by a Socialist MEP. We understand that much grace has not made them, "they expose from the team of Sanchez. "It is not institutional discredit, it is tactical," they defend from the socialist engine room. "We are not concerned with the issue of discourtesy. The important thing is that so many truths have never been told. Oscar has been a snowplow," say sources from La Moncloa.

"Parliament is Parliament. Or has Feijóo been soft?", defends a socialist deputy. "We have spent years of deafening anger," adds a socialist minister.

But the decision not to intervene sowed bewilderment, yes, but also encouraged fear among some party members that it would be seen as ugly, discourteous, contempt. "We have messages and calls from socialists who have not been able to govern because of the PP-Vox pacts to congratulate us. The militancy is euphoric, "they expose from Ferraz.

OPINION

Investiture.

Broken bridge over sewage

  • Writing: JORGE BUSTOS Madrid

Broken bridge over sewage

Analysis.

And Congress was stunned.

  • Writing: LUCÍA MÉNDEZ Madrid

And Congress was stunned.

Óscar Puente was a member of the Executive of the PSOE until 2021 and even spokesman, although he barely starred in a few press conferences from Ferraz, and the management opted for other people to leave, although he still had the position of spokesman. Sanchista in origin, has not hesitated to criticize the management and some decision of the Government and even gave his opinion on the possibility that in Castilla y León the PSOE supported the Popular Party so that it did not have to depend on Vox.

Puente was the most voted list in Valladolid, where he governed since 2015, but a pact between PP and Vox prevented him from reissuing the mandate. There is the key to his election: to dismantle Feijóo's demand that they let him govern because he was the most voted and put the focus on the PP-Vox entente.

"With the 'winner to winner' of Oscar to Feijóo the debate is over," they say in the PSOE. This is how the socialist strategists explain the reason for their election and their strategy: "You need someone with aplomb who knows how to say everything that was said from the rostrum. With dialectical capacity. Oscar is a good fajador. His first intervention was to put Feijóo in his place. It had to be put in its place. Put him in front of the mirror, dismantle his house of cards and horn him. The second intervention was more leisurely, already contrasting."

The truth is that the decision allowed Sánchez to avoid a debate in which to pronounce himself and address the amnesty. Because the amnesty and the cessions to the independentistas was one of the levers with which Feijóo began his intervention. "The play is good. Let them talk about Puente and not about amnesty," says a territorial leader. "There has been no talk of amnesty. This went well," government sources say. "We had been summoned for an investiture, not to talk about amnesty," they wield from Sánchez's team. "They are not going to give us any lesson about pacts with Puigdemont when they give shelter and agree, the pacts of shame, with those nostalgic for the regime of 36," they observe from the socialist leadership.

It did surprise in the ranks of the Government and the PSOE that Feijóo did not want to give them a reply. Let him dismiss that opportunity. They speak of "strategic error". "I had a speech for Patxi [Lopez] and Pedro [Sánchez]. Not for a third party." "He discards all the arguments that he has not used and will not be able to use anymore against the PSOE."

  • Congress of Deputies
  • Politics
  • Investiture of the President
  • Alberto Núñez Feijóo
  • PP
  • PSOE
  • Pedro Sanchez