🤦‍♂️ This Week in Spain: Feijóo's Very Bad Week

Also: The Goya Awards, the Galicia elections and reimagining Nebulossa's "Zorra".

Feb 15, 2024

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | February 15, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #44

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🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: The Partido Popular is in turmoil after it was made public that the party leadership believes pardoning separatist Junts leader Carles Puigdemont could bring peace to the region. And this is just the beginning of a fiery political week that culminates Sunday with the regional (tight) elections in Galicia. Sizzling! 🥓

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Not on our bingo card

🤦‍♂️ Feijóo in Trouble Over Saying ‘ Maybe’ to Amnesty

The center-right Partido Popular (ok, pretty much all of Spanish politics) is aflutter over the astonishing revelation that party boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo considered pardoning (with conditions) outlaw Catalan separatist boss Carles Puigdemont.

It’s a secret: The conversations between PP and Puigdemont’s party Junts in which the idea was floated took place last year after the 23J elections, when both PP and center-left PSOE were desperately trying to strike alliances with other political parties in order to reach a majority in Parliament.
Why so controversial? For months now, Feijóo and other PP leaders have organized rallies around Spain against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s amnesty bill—which would allow Puigdemont to return to Spain unpunished—arguing that it’s unconstitutional.
Timing: We’re also three days away from regional elections in Galicia (Feijóo’s home region), and the PP has been desperately trying to downplay the revelation because it looks, you know, hypocritical (shhhh… 🙊).

But let’s start from the beginning. How on earth did this happen?

There was chatter: A high-ranking PP leader met with journalists for an informal gathering last Friday. These meetings are common practice, and journalists are allowed to publish what’s discussed as long as they don’t reveal the name of the source.

One little phrase: El País (and pretty much all the other publications present) reported that the conversation turned to Catalonia after one reporter asked what should be done there in order to achieve a political reset. The PP leader criticized Sánchez’s push for amnesty, which they called “illegal”, but then noted that back in August, when the PP was in talks with Junts, the party had “analyzed [amnesty] for 24 hours” before discarding it as “unconstitutional”.
But…maybe? The source then said that a reset in the region could be achieved as long as the people affected “agreed to be subjected to the Spanish justice system” and “expressed their regret”. (Good luck getting Puigdemont to apologize.)
How would that work? They explained that a legal alternative to the “illegal” amnesty process would be a “pardon in exchange for reconciliation”, as long as those accused make an “explicit commitment” to respect the rule of law. “If they are truly interested in reconciliation, we can talk”. (We repeat Puigdemont mention👆. If you believe that, we’re selling a bridge…)
No, they didn’t! On top of all of that, the source also said they saw “difficulties” in having judges prove that Puigdemont had engaged in terrorist activities, which is pretty much the opposite of what the PP has been saying in recent weeks (and which we’ve covered ad nauseam).

Upside down: The reporters agreed that this seemed to invert the PP’s official position on the Catalan separatists , and saw three key takeaways:

Junts indeed discussed the possibility of an amnesty in exchange for supporting Feijóo (which they then rejected).
The PP saw a pardon (with conditions) as a way to move past the judicial conflict with Catalan separatists. (Until now, the PP has insisted that a pardon would be the equivalent of “surrendering” to the separatists).
The PP thinks it will be very hard to convict Puigdemont of terrorism.

All 16 media outlets present ran the story using similar headlines, sending shockwaves throughout the political arena—and angering pretty much everyone on both the left and the right.

Damage control: On Sunday morning, Feijóo (who was in Galicia campaigning for regional president Alfonso Rueda), tried to control the narrative by saying he is still very much against an amnesty and pardons because “the conditions are not met”.
But the damage was done: According to El Mundo, PP leaders were outraged and in shock. A regional leader called it “an absolute disaster” while an MP commented: “After 300 demonstrations (against the amnesty)… what will the person who grabbed their flag and we took to so many demonstrations think?”

Attack, attack! In the government, PSOE leaders closed ranks and took to social media to attack Feijóo.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the PP boss would have supported the amnesty “had they not depended on (the votes from far-right) Vox”, while Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños wondered whether Feijóo would apologize to them for all the “terrible” things they have been accusing them of.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal was also furious (and wasn’t going to let a good crisis go to waste), saying that the story revealed “a giant political scam” led by the PP and Feijóo.

So…why would PP leak the amnesty (or “amnesty”) talks like this? Great question. Because so far it sounds like they shot themselves in the foot (i.e. the “Stupid PP” theory). Unless, of course, they knew exactly what they were doing (i.e. the “Devious PP” theory).

Junts leader Carles Puigdemont was very unhappy a week ago, especially as the alleged connection between separatist leaders and Russia was gaining traction (we covered it last week) in the EU Parliament.
Puigdemont sent an email to EU MPs calling the whole Russia thing a “conspiracy theory”—but he also mentioned the investiture conversations he’d had with the PP, warning that soon, everything would be made public.
One working theory (the “Devious PP” theory) is that the PP decided to beat Puigdemont and made this information public before he had a chance to weaponize it. As former PSOE Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero said, it was a “controlled demolition”.

All eyes are now on the Galician elections, where PP regional president Alfonso Rueda is pushing for a majority in the local parliament so he can be reelected. But leftist nationalist party BNG is trailing not too far from the PP and some polls are saying it’s too close to call.

Spain’s national statistics service, the CIS, is even predicting that the BNG and the PSOE will get enough votes to form a coalition government and unseat Rueda.
Then again, the CIS is run by an Sánchez appointee who’s widely thought to put a finger on the scales. So its predictions are often off target. (Then again again, a lot of the private pollsters have been wrong recently too.)
If the PP does actually lose in its favorite fiefdom, the party may look for a scapegoat and—easy pick!—Feijóo could get the boot, paving the way for a new party boss (which in this case, we’re certain it’s going to be a woman 👩🏻).

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week

1. 🛥️ The ripple effect of two Guardía Civil killed in Cádiz

The death on Friday night of two Guardia Civil members in Barbate harbor, in Cádiz, when their rubber zodiac boat was run over by a larger narcolancha (narco boat) as they tried to arrest the narcos, was filmed in all its horror. And then, as the families of those who died mourned, the situation grew even more convulsive and grim.

The tragedy began when the Guardia Civil zodiac with six officers went to arrest the crew of the narcolancha inside the Barbate port, where narco boats had been hiding from a storm named Karlotta.
All the much larger (14m) narcolanchas left upon the arrival of the small zodiac, except two. They played with the police zodiac, swerving around it and even hitting it three or four times until one moved away. The one remaining then ran over the zodiac, killing two officers and sending two more to the hospital.
Eight men were later arrested and processed for the killings: The six members of the narcolancha crew remain in jail, including Francisco Javier Martín Pérez aka Kiko el Cabra, a narco boat captain, and Antonio González Cazorla, aka El Chispa, a regional drug boss. Two others, who were waiting to pick up the narcolancha crew on land, were released with charges.

The ripple-effect of the deadly crime began almost immediately. Not only around Barbate, but across Spain, as law and politics collided, and sparks flew.

Andalusian prosecutors opened an investigation into the videos taken of the event on bystanders’ cell phones, in which people can be heard cheering on the narcos.
Guardia Civil officer associations asked for another investigation, this one into who gave the (in hindsight not so great) order to send a small, 6m, 500k zodiac out in stormy weather to evict a squad of 14m, 5,000k narcolanchas. The mayor of Barbate had apparently called, tired of having narcolanchas in the port, and the bad weather meant no other boat could get to the port. But there was another contributing factor…
It emerged that the Guardia Civil didn’t send out agents in a bigger boat in part because they hadn’t had any that weren’t in the shop since Feb. 7. As of Tuesday, they still had no operable boats. “Any maritime service boss would have argued that this operation could not be mounted because the conditions were not right and our lives should not be risked, but this is the Civil Guard, a hierarchical institution,” one Guardia Civil agent told El Pais.

The tensions over the pointless loss of life blew up on the day of the funeral of the two officers.

Guardia Civil agent associations and opposition politicians demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, claiming that he’d left the police service unprotected by dissolving anti-drug teams and not investing in the service. “Mr. Marlaska cannot continue to be the Interior Minister,” PP leader Feijóo said.
Marlaska pushed back: “I am not thinking of resigning. These are dramatic, grave acts that will not go unpunished; but I emphasize the important effort made in terms of investment in material and personnel made in the last five years,” he said.
When Marlaska tried to place a medal on the coffin of one agent who died in a memorial service in Pamplona, he was denied by the officer’s widow, who apparently said she’s rather not get the monetary payment of the award than have him place the medal.

Putting the cherry on top of the “politics never leaves us alone” cake, Basque nationalist party Bildu declined to have a moment of silence for the officer in Pamplona, and when Vox called for a statement of support and Ciudadanos called for a moment of silence for the killed officers in the Catalan capital of Barcelona, the home town of one of them, the other parties in the separatist-led regional parliament declined because it wasn’t a Catalan issue. 🧘‍♂️

2. 🤑…😭 Money, money, money…denied

Remember Alberto Garzón? If not, here’s a quick primer. Because he’s back in the news, and it’s a doozy of a “Nah, he didn’t, did he?”

Communist big shot: Alberto started as a member of Spain’s communist party and rose up through the coalition that absorbed it, the Izquierda Unida (United Left, or IU) until he became its leader.
Parliamentarian: Garzón made it to (political) Broadway in 2019 when he was elected to parliament as a member of the Podemos coalition. A year later, when Sánchez’s PSOE and Podemos formed a coalition government, boom 💥he was named Minister of Consumer Affairs. Big time!
You might remember me from… As a Ministro de Consumo with a love for the hashtag Alberto pissed off Spain’s meat industry by telling The Guardian that people should eat less meat to save the environment (#MenosCarneMásVida) and claiming Spain exports poor quality meat. To which PM Sánchez said he liked a nice chuletón, thank you very much.
Toys and health: Under another hashtag—#HuelgadeJuguetes—he promoted non-gendered toys and child play, and his ministry also prohibited advertising unhealthy snacks to children.
Bet ya didn’t know… And in November 2022, Garzón launched the (hashtag alert!) #PERO campaign to warn people of the dangers of gambling (called pero, or “but” because, he said, betting addiction always begins was an excuse, a “but”).

We don’t necessarily want to criticize Garzón. These initiatives have more or less noble aims. But with that last one…wait for it…wait…

Revolving door: On Tuesday, three months after leaving his ministerial job (and politics in general), it came out that he was joining a business PR and lobby shop named Acento, run by two other ex-politicos—José Blanco (PSOE) and Alfonso Alonso (PP)—as director of Prospectiva GeoPolitica (like, forward geopolitical analysis).
Sounds like a weird job for a communist, but so? See, that’s the weird thing. There’s strange fellows, and there’s the fact that one of Acento’s big clients is (drumroll please) Anesar—Spain’s association of gaming, gambling and betting halls.

Shiiiiiit, really? Yup. The consumer affairs communist who slammed gaming is joining a lobby group to promote the gaming industry. Or wait, he was joining them because, like, there was the mother of all “you gotta be kidding me can we talk about hypocrites who does this guy think he is” blowups. (The would not be a big deal in U.S. politics, where money is king, but here shame is sometimes still a thing.)

On Wednesday, one day after getting the 💰 job that would change his finances, Alberto said oh, right, maybe that’s not a good look. “I do not want my personal decision to harm my former colleagues,” he said as he did a 180 on the j-o-b, which he admitted “caused a huge stir in the left-wing ecosystem.” (Um, ya think?).

Word is it was Sumar boss Yolanda Díaz (whose lefty coalition includes IU) who forced Garzón to resign his high.-money hopes. And now Alberto will disappear again.

3. 🎙️ Did Polònia parody Ayuso—or make her a campaign ad?

Catalan satirical/sketch comedy program Polònia’s remake of Spain’s Eurovision entry ‘Zorra’ as ‘Facha’— starring a singer who looks a whole lot like Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso—was undoubtedly meant as a dig at the regional PP leader’s politics—right wing aka facha aka fascist—and her style—kinda kooky.

The fictional Ayuso suggests she’s about to push aside PP party leader Feijóo, threatens those who don’t support her with being sent to Madrid old age homes (where many died in the COVID pandemic); makes whacky claims (like Madrid will never have a drought because there on bulls on Gran Vía), mocks mild-mannered Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida as a sheep and laughs maniacally.

What Polònia might not totally have been banking on is that their song might have been catchier than the original, or that Ayuso would kinda love it.

Asked on the Telecinco program La mirada crítica, whether she was angry about the song, Ayuso replied that she wasn’t sure whether she liked the original or the parody better, but that people around her were “delighted” by the video and it had been forwarded to her “1,000 times.”
And then she just owned the whole facha thing. “If you tell me that turning on the tap in any house in Madrid and having water is fascist, here's the fascist. If lowering taxes on the people who work hard in Madrid, on the people, on the self-employed, on the merchants, and helping them with their lives, if that means being fascist—here we are. If I try to give scholarships to people who make an effort in their studies, fascist. If Madrid is the capital of Gay Pride and that is fascist, then here we are, the fascists."
And there’s more: “We are in a moment in which we are doing great things, I think the best in Madrid in a long time, and that is my moment. You go through Madrid and there are 14 million tourists, all fascists! We have the best nightlife, all fascists!”

Polònia’s may have accidentally made a campaign video for Ayuso. We’ll be curious to see if she tries to buy the rights to use at her campaign events after she (inevitably) pushes aside Feijóo…

4. 🤷 When in doubt, try Palestine?

Sumar boss Yolanda Díaz has pretty much disappeared from the grand stage that is Spanish politics in recent weeks (save for pushing Garzón out of a job 👆), after serving her role as the leader of the “new and improved” far-left coalition partner in the 23J elections. And you know what? She has too, and she’s apparently not thrilled about it. So she’s decided to do something, and it’s pissed off her ~~overlords~~ senior coalition partners in the PSOE.

You guessed it: Díaz is traveling to Palestine to sign some important labor deals with her Palestine equal. That’s exactly what you would do, right?
But also: She plans to take advantage of her trip to draw attention to ~~herself~~ the conflict and denounce “the complicity and silence of the international community” in the face of a conflict in which international laws are being “violated, war crimes are committed and boys and girls are murdered every day.”

Political optics: The big picture as we noted three paragraphs back is that Díaz and her party, Sumar, have disappeared under the wave of amnesty fighting and international events, and she’s being pushed by the left she leads to differentiate herself from the PSOE so she’s more than a political footstool for PM Sánchez (aka Mr Handsome).

And that means pissing the PSOE off. To stand out, Díaz has been criticizing the government (of which she is a part) over its positions on Israel, Palestine and the war, like by saying, “Spain has the capacity to do more” in dealing with the crisis.

That’s really a dart at the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who’s also the one most clearly irritated by her sort-of surprise announcement of a trip that hadn’t yet been formalized.

Soooooo bored. Asked by reporters to comment on Díaz’s trip, Albares laconically replied (and he can seriously do laconic), “In the Foreign Ministry, no trip for the second vice president is being prepared.”
…and irritated too! Other diplomatic sources noted (pointedly): “There is one foreign policy: it is directed by the President of the Government and planned and executed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.” Burn! 🔥

The government announced Wednesday that Sánchez and the PM of Ireland Leo Varadkar have sent a letter to EU boss woman Ursula von der Leyen asking that she investigate to ensure that Israel is complying with its obligations to respect human rights, and Albares called the letter “very brave,” so maybe they’ll all be cool now?

5.🎞️ Sigourney Weaver’s emotional speech at the Goyas

We can neither confirm nor deny we were moved to tears this weekend.

Legendary actress Sigourney Weaver was honored with the International Goya Award at the Spanish Film Academy's Goya Awards ceremony (AKA the Spanish Oscars) that took place in Valladolid on Saturday night.

Her 10-minute speech got widespread attention not only because she made the repeated effort to speak Spanish but also because of how heartfelt and moving it was.

Weaver is the third recipient of the honorary prize, following Cate Blanchett and Juliette Binoche.

The jury praised Weaver for her “versatility, charisma, and talent”, which have been evident in a range of roles from dramatic portrayals, like naturalist Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mist, to action roles in films like Avatar.
The also star of Alien and Ghostbusters said in her speech that she was committed to seeking out stories about and for women and highlighting the power of women in various unexpected ways.

Spanish star turn: One of the highlights of her speech came when she paid homage to Spanish actress Maria Luisa Solá, who has dubbed Weaver in more than 30 films starting with Alien in 1979. (Weaver also quoted Bill Murray, who she says always comments on how her acting is a lot better when she’s dubbed in Spanish.)

Solá, who’s 85-years old and couldn’t make it to the awards, told El País that when she heard Weaver mention her during her televised speech she jumped off her chair in disbelief.
Zoinks! “I was just staring (at the screen), like dreaming… moved and surprised", she said. She also said it was the first time an international star acknowledged her work (she’s dubbed many, many movies).

In non-Sigourney-but-still-exciting news: Society of the Snow (now streaming on Netflix) emerged as the standout winner at the Goyas with a total of 12 awards.

Directed by Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona (who helped The Impossible and Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom among other things), the movie is based on the true story known as the “tragedy of the Andes”.
The movie won best director, best cinematography, best score, best photography and special effects, among other categories.

If you haven’t seen it, do not miss it.

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