Behind the frustrated ‘putsch’ of 3-F, the extreme weakness of the Government

The ‘flashback’ of the vote on Thursday, February 3, a few minutes before the vote on the decree law to reform Mariano Rajoy’s labor reform law, throws a key frame to understand what has happened.

Around a quarter past six in the afternoon, Cuca Gamarra, spokesperson for the PP, climb to the top of the gallery where the president of the chamber, Meritxell Batet, is. Guillermo Mariscal and the general secretary of the PP, Teodoro García Egea, join. Seeing the commotion, the first vice president, the socialist Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, the second vice president, the popular Ana Pastor, the third vice president, Gloria Elizo, and they are also joined by the fourth secretary, the popular Adolfo Suárez. With President Batet is the senior lawyer Carlos Gutiérrez, general secretary of Congress.

“President, deputy Alberto Casero has voted electronically and there has been a computer error; it is necessary to repeat his vote in person & rdquor ;, the PP spokeswoman urges Batet. “No computer failure was detected here, all those who have voted have done so normally & rdquor ;, replies the senior lawyer, Gutiérrez. It is that this February 3 fourteen or fifteen deputies have voted electronically. No mistake.

President Batet concludes: “By not registering an error in the system, the rules do not allow the deputy to vote again in person & rdquor;. The members of the PP present can request that the vote be suspended and that the Congress Table meet immediately to examine the situation created. But they refrain from doing so.

“It has not been a dramatic situation or discussion that is going on up there in the presidency. Uncertainty is noted, but It seems to me that the PP believes that the accounts will turn out the same and that they will manage to overthrow the decree”, says a member of the Congress Table to EL PERIÓDICO DE CATALUNYA.

Everyone will take their seats. The chamber doors, as usual, are closed. No one can enter or leave during the vote. From her seat, the PP spokeswoman also has the possibility of getting up and requesting the suspension of the vote. She does not do it.

The news reaches the presidency that Casero is in Congress. He had gastroenteritis and obtained authorization from the Table to vote electronically. But The PP has called him urgently. And it’s here with the doors already closed.

Meritxell Batet is wrong in the count and considers the decree law repealed. The deputies of the PP and Vox explode with joy. The expected news. Sergio Sayas and Carlos García Adanero, the two deputies of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) who had promised their party to vote in favor of the decree law, in application of the agreement sealed with the PSOE on Wednesday, February 2 in Madrid, have complied .

secret conspiracy

But not with the UPN executive, but with what they had secretly sworn to, with the PP and with Vox, in a secret conspiracy until the result of the vote. The ‘putsch’ of 3-F is a reality. This is a covert motion of censure. The reform of the labor reform will bring down the Government of Pedro Sánchez.

But lo and behold, the euphoria lasts seconds. The trompe l’oeil fades. It is that Batet rectifies: the decree law is validated by a vote.

It is the vote of Alberto Casero, the one that Cuca Gamarra had anticipated above a few minutes ago. Casero, García Egea’s right-hand man in the party, made a mistake and voted yes when he should have voted no. It is no longer the hand of García Egea but the hand of God, that reference by Diego Armando Maradona to the British media when he conceded the goal with his left hand in the England goal on June 22, 1986 in the quarterfinal match of the World Cup final in Mexico.

And it is not the only hand of God that moves Casero. It is not the only error of his this 3-F. He votes no to the processing of the labor reform decree law, that is, in favor of the Government, as a bill, and against a motion by his own party, the PP, on “constitutional observance of the legislative program & rdquor; of the government.

The parliamentary bloc that supports the coalition government of Pedro Sánchez knew that this vote was decisive, for the survival of the Government itself and to meet one of the demands for the disbursement of 12,000 million euros by the European Commission in mid-2022. Of that amount, 10,000 million depended on the validation of the decree law.

And he knew the difficulty in getting the support of the parties of his “virtual parliamentary arch”. “You cannot have that arrogance. Now a mindundi from the Ministry comes and tells you ‘there you have the text’. The discredit of parliamentarism has to do with this. You cannot get to the point of proposing a parliamentary negotiation without being able to move a comma&rdquor ;, explains a deputy of said “virtual parliamentary arch”.

But they were lentils, or take them or leave them, according to the pact between the Government, the CEOE and the unions.

The Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), therefore, was excluded if the content was not negotiated. Y the pressure on the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), even through trade unions, proved to be a trip to nowhere.

An opportunity to break with the PP

Although it seemed like a no-win situation, the letter from UPN emerged. The former president of said formation and former president of Navarra, Miguel Sanz, on the one hand, and Javier Esparza, president of the party, on the other, saw an opportunity to split pears with the PP and rethink the Navarra Suma coalition. Some relevant businessmen advocated that the reform of the labor reform be that opportunity.

“On Wednesday night Javier Esparza was sure that everything would go smoothly. The two deputies in Madrid had assured that they would follow the discipline of voting in favor of the yes to the labor decree as agreed by the UPN Executive Committee & rdquor ;, says a source who maintained close contact with Sanz and Esparza at those times. “Esparza and Sanz are convinced now, after what happened, that the two deputies let PP and Vox know what their intentions were endings: vote no”, add the source.

All in all, moving forward with the new labor reform with the two UPN votes -if it had worked- was already an in extremis solution of great weakness and impotence.

In the rearview mirror, the road to this crossroads began on October 22, 2021, when the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, after assuming the certainty that the president of the Second Chamber of the Supreme Court, Manuel Marchena, would initiate criminal proceedings for disobedience against her -the ghost of Carme Forcadell- if she did not annul the seat of the Canarian deputy of United We Can Alberto Rodríguez, she proceeded to strip him of it.

And it continued when United We Can instead of replacing Rodríguez in the seat facing the next battles, as decisive as those of the labor reform decree-law, chose to keep it symbolically empty. Of symbolism, as it has now been possible to verify, nothing.

an empty seat

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“The legal fight cannot justify keeping an empty seat. The Constitutional Court is not a duty court to which you go in protection and proceeds with the speed that is intended & rdquor ;, indicates a judicial source.

The PP and Vox, convinced of the politicization of justice in their favor, will now continue with the farce in the courts of what is the Spanish Judicial State with capital letters.