• Politics Alfonso Guerra and Felipe González call on the PSOE to rebel against amnesty: "We can not let ourselves be blackmailed by anyone"

The former president of the Junta de Extremadura Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra, of the PSOE, has compared on Wednesday an eventual amnesty to the Catalan independence leaders with "raping 40 million Spaniards", their votes and the Constitution.

At a breakfast of Forum Europe, the socialist has reflected on a possible amnesty law in exchange for the support of Junts in an investiture of Pedro Sánchez and has assured that "nobody would think of amnestying a rapist".

The PSOE, for its part, has asked the former socialist leader "restraint when using certain verbs" because "they do not contribute anything positive." Party spokeswoman Pilar Alegría said Sanchez was responding to the results of the July 23 polls because Spaniards said they wanted to continue "on that path of progress and growth."

Previously, Rodríguez Ibarra had referred to the "monumental scandal" because some rapists have benefited from the Law of only yes is yes, whose entry into force has reduced the sentences of hundreds of sex offenders or has made it possible for them to be released before serving their sentences. "How can you stand for someone to rape 40 million Spaniards? Because whoever violates the Constitution is violating me, is violating my vote, "continued the Socialist, who stressed that an amnesty would serve to make Spaniards "more unequal" and would constitute a "betrayal" to PSOE voters.

In this context, he has lashed out at members of his own party for "paving the way" for Carles Puigdemont, who in his opinion "tries to humiliate" the acting president. "I do not understand very well the leaders of my party when they are paving the way for Puigdemont," he said. The socialist considers that the leadership of the PSOE, instead of saying "that the general secretary (Sánchez) does what he has to do", they would have to say "do what you promised to do to the citizens on 23-J", remembering that the acting chief executive did pronounce the word amnesty before the elections, precisely to ensure that there would not be.

Democracy "in danger"

"He said there would be neither amnesty nor self-determination. And he has not said anything more," he stressed. Rodríguez Ibarra, who has praised the Constitution and has affirmed that "he has the feeling" that "democracy is in danger", has reflected extensively on this measure of grace to the leaders of 1-O and believes that, if approved, "we would give the reason" to the leader of Junts.

"(We would say) that we are indeed facing a repressive State and a State that is persecuting the independentistas for their thinking," he lamented, before emphasizing that, Puigdemont's intention, is "to continue boasting with his seven deputies, trying to humiliate the secretary general of the PSOE "and the party itself. "I resist that this man, this fugitive, this man in the trunk, is the one who decides the future of the country," he added.

The former president of Extremadura, on the contrary, believes that he is "a defender" of Sánchez if he attacks the independentists, because this way "he tries to safeguard the honor" of the PSOE and its 140 years of history, which "can not submit to the whims, to the whims of someone who has shown immense cowardice, fleeing from Justice and not accounting for his actions.

In parallel, Rodríguez Ibarra has questioned that the pardons to the Catalan independence leaders were "a success", as Sánchez said on Tuesday after receiving the commission from King Felipe VI to be a candidate for an investiture. "That they haven't been kicking the can for these five years is all well and good, but (...) That we are discussing amnesty is proof that the pardons did not give the result they seemed they were going to give," he explained.

  • PSOE
  • Amnesty
  • Investiture of the President
  • Pedro Sanchez
  • Politics