Yolanda Díaz closes ranks with Sánchez, however asks to defend the “legitimacy” of the coalition | Spain | EUROtoday

The chief of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, has expressed this Wednesday “all” her “support and respect” for the choice of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, at a time that she has acknowledged as “difficult” for the president. After studying that the socialist chief is opening a interval of reflection to determine whether or not he continues to guide the Executive and in a context of robust assaults from the fitting and the acute proper on the coalition, the second vp has additionally requested to defend “democracy, the progressive bloc and legitimacy” of the Government, a position that has subsequently been supported by all Sumar ministers.

Sánchez's letter has caused confusion among the minority partner and allies in Congress. After it emerged early in the day that a Madrid court has opened proceedings following the complaint by the ultra group Manos Liminas against the president's wife, Begoña Gómez, for a possible crime of influence peddling, the leftist group initially asked for time to emit a reaction. The letter caught Yolanda Díaz at the presentation of a book in Madrid, an event with barely thirty people and from which she left hastily to avoid making statements. Although both the head of Labor and the president have coincided in the Government control session in Congress and have been in contact throughout the day, the second vice president had not yet been able to read the full text because she did not have the cell phone with her, according to sources close to her. Díaz has left the Reina Sofía bookstore to evaluate her situation with her ministers and Sumar leaders.

“All the support and respect for the decision and personal reflection of the President of the Government in a difficult moment,” reads the message issued shortly after nine at night on the social network X (formerly Twitter). “The right-wing offensive cannot get its way. We must defend democracy, the progressive bloc and the legitimacy of the coalition government that has improved people's lives so much,” said Díaz. Beyond reiterating support on a personal level, his parliamentary spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón, later emphasized “political reflection.” “What is at stake is whether a progressive coalition government can govern or whether power can only systematically belong to them,” he summarized in SER. “Every time the right does not govern in Spain, it makes the climate unbreathable and makes those who assume political responsibilities on the front line pay a very high price,” he added before referring to the case against the former Valencian vice president Mónica Oltra, which led her to resign in 2022 and has just been archived.

“We have an enormous task ahead of us and we must not be intimidated by these operations, which only seek to remove from power what the Spanish people voted for,” the Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, said in RNE. “In the face of harassment from the right and the extreme right, today more than ever, a brave and united Government,” the head of Health and leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, has stated online. “All my solidarity with the president in this case of permanent siege by the extreme right. We are going to continue defending democracy,” the head of Youth and Children and candidate for IU coordination, Sira Rego, has also expressed.

Meanwhile, PNV and Junts have avoided taking a position this Wednesday. The spokesperson for the left a patriot in the lower house, Mertxe Aizpurua, has referred to the opening of proceedings towards Begoña Gómez as lawfare (“political instrumentation of justice”): “We know well what the lawfare and what objectives those who promote and protect it seek. You will always find us facing those who seek to prevent the popular mandate. Always”. The ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, has expressed his support for Pedro Sánchez through a tweet that concludes with an emphatic “broken rather than bent.” Rufián's assist is preceded by some reproaches. He alludes to “those who harassed Irene Montero for months in front of her children”, to “those who politically killed Mónica Oltra [exvicepresidenta valenciana, de Compromís] with a lie” and those who “convinced” Sánchez that “perhaps it was good to put him in jail for a referendum” to ensure that they are the same ones who are now “going after the PSOE.” And he reproaches this party for “many times looking the other way when all this happened.” “And despite all this, today we can only support and endure,” Rufián emphasizes. Already this morning, the ERC spokesperson requested the president within the Government management session and regretted that Sánchez is “suffering the dirty war firsthand.”

The leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has conveyed her “solidarity and empathy” to Sánchez, although in line with Rufián she has recalled the case of Pablo Iglesias and Irene Montero, who for months and when they were part of the first coalition Executive, suffered demonstrations ultras at the doors of your home. “At Podemos we know well what the lawfare and media persecution. We should have stopped them when they harassed the vice president and a government minister in their own home,” says the deputy. “Even so, we think that it is always time to defend democracy, despite the high price it entails. Either democracy prevails or the reactionaries win. The democratization of the judiciary and the media is a democratic urgency,” she noted in two messages on X.

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