Sánchez advances a "temperance" legislature in the face of a "disoriented and lacking" opposition

Natalia Puga Lugo

lugo

Updated Saturday, January 27, 2024-14:07

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Pedro Sánchez continues his Galician tour. For the second consecutive weekend, he traveled to Galicia to support the socialist candidate for the regional elections of February 18,

José Ramón Gómez Besteiro

, and, from

Lugo

, he brought together the current state and regional politics and took the opportunity to advance what he says that Moderation will be his roadmap in this term as President of the Government. "This legislature I am going to demand temperance as a way of doing politics," he announced.

Before a full and dedicated auditorium at the Veterinary Faculty of Lugo, candidate Besteiro's land, he denounced that in the current legislature "we suffer from a disoriented and lacking opposition" and claimed that, before it, "there is a government with a clear direction and with temperance as a way of doing politics". And he announced that they will continue down that path "in the face of insults, disqualifications and noise from the right and the extreme right."

Pedro Sánchez, together with the socialist candidate for the Xunta, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, this Saturday, in Lugo.Eliseo TrigoEFE

The socialist leader attributed this "noise" from the opposition to the attempt to create a "smokescreen" because "they cannot justify why they vote against revaluing pensions or extending the social shield" and seek to "divert attention," but he also interprets it as an attempt to "demobilize the progressive electorate."

And he has pulled numbers. "Let's leave the opposition with their lies, we, let's leave the data," he said, noting that "the data says that Spain is growing more than the main European economies, with lower inflation and with the lowest unemployment rate in the last three lustrums". He reviewed his measures "so that retirees do not lose purchasing power", to advance equality between men and women, to protect young people from pornographic content on the Internet or through housing.

Faced with this supposed attempt at demobilization, he traveled to his candidate's land, managed to gather all his supporters, many of whom had to stay outside the auditorium, and went on the hunt for undecided voters. The CIS pre-election survey predicted this week that 29.8% of Galicians have not yet decided to vote for the regional elections on February 18.

At the threshold of the start of this electoral race, the PSOE leader and President of the Government has recognized that "on February 18, everything will depend on those Galicians who do not know very well what to do, who are undecided" and has questioned predicting: "If Galicia votes, Galicia changes."

Aware that all the polls confirm the

defeat

of the Galician Nationalist Bloc to the PSOE in the community, where the socialists are the third force, Sánchez has also appealed to left-wing voters to concentrate their vote on the PSOE. He has insisted that "there are many ballots for change in Galicia, but only one ballot to govern the change, that of the PSOE with Besteiro as president."

Next, he has pulled out all the stops, trying to make the Presidency of the Government profitable, promising that "If there is a socialist in

La Moncloa

and another in the Xunta, on February 18, Galicia does not roll, Galia flies." A play on words with the name of the PP candidate, Alfonso Rueda, and his motto of recent months: "Galicia Rueda."

"Spain neither breaks nor sinks," he wanted to clarify at the gates of this campaign that is being lived in a national key, as it is the first appointment with the polls after the

general elections of 23-J

, and, taking advantage of his work in Moncloa , knew how to sell itself: "Spain is going in the right direction: 21 million people working, 783 thousand jobs created last year, with the lowest unemployment rate in the last 15 years."

"His miracle ended in jail"

He also contrasted it with the way in which the Popular Party faced the financial crisis from the Presidency of the Government. "His miracle ended up in jail, we don't do miracles, but we manage the economy better. Do you know why? Because we put it at the service of the people." Thus, he recalled that, after that financial crisis, the

popular ones

"cut the welfare state" while, after the pandemic or the current

permacrisis

"what we have done is strengthen the welfare state."

He has asked that undecided voter and the 70% of Galicians who assure that they want a change to go to vote because "one cannot remain resigned" and he has reviewed his political history and the last few years in the Government, with its social measures as its banner, to remind all of them: "We need leaders who transform, not who administer; crises are not caused, they arrive: the important thing is what we do with those crises."

Pedro Sánchez; Besteiro; the mayor of Lugo,

Paula Alvarellos

; and the former mayor,

Lara Méndez

, focused practically the entire event on Galicia and their projects for the community. They also turned it into an event to raise the morale of Galician socialism before the final rally of the campaign.

Paula Alvarellos referred to the head of the socialist list as "Besteiro, the desired one", for whom Galicia has been waiting "for many years" while Lara Méndez focused her criticism on the Xunta de Galicia of the PP, with which "we have been stuck in last". And, in the midst of the exchange of praise, Gómez Besteiro said of Pedro Sánchez that he is "the most Galician president of the 40 years of democracy in Spain, who "did more for Galicia in five years than Rajoy, who is Galician."

They did not forget the past of Gómez Besteiro, who in 2016 had to resign as general secretary of the Galician PSOE due to ten judicial accusations based "on anonymous people", all of them finally filed. "I suffered through the sewer manual," he recalled.