Thread: Yesterday, Vox failed to present a constructive alternative project for government. What will the PP and Podemos say today?
1. Second day of the motion of no confidence beginning. Yesterday, Vox failed to present a constructive alternative project for government. What will the PP and Podemos say today?
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2. The circus begins in the first few seconds. Muñoz (Podemos) tries to call for a minute of silence for victims of gender violence. Her MPs stand up. Speaker Batet interrupts to say no, and that she should continue with her speech.
3. The rhetorical trick of reading out lists of names has gone down well. Castañon (Podemos) reads a short list of some historically renowned women. She says Vox has put forward a project for a “worse country” with a privileged model based on the exploitation of others.
5. Maestro (Podemos) starts off with: “Democratic members of the CEDA [right-wing coalition in the Second Republic], nostalgic for the dictatorship, members of Vox”. Then she says Abascal's party is set on “confrontation and quarrel”.
6. Abascal's reply begins. He argues that all women aren't like the female Podemos MPs who just spoke. Female Vox MPs stand and applaud. Abascal says that only female Podemos MPs have spoken following the instructions of the “little alpha male” Pablo Iglesias.
7. With contempt on his face as he replies to female Podemos MPs, at times shouting even, Abascal says Vox represents women, “you are not an example, you do not represent them”.
8. Espinosa de los Monteros (Vox) regrets “there is not a single positive value that Podemos has brought to Spanish politics”. He says Pablo Iglesias's party has supplied hatred and verbal and physical violence, “the worst of the human being”. He claims “Spain is in danger".
9. Espinosa de los Monteros (Vox) mentions some economic ideas: re-industrialisation, agriculture, “massive lowering” of taxes, strengthening businesses, improving the labour market, unified national single market, simplification of regulations, training, etc.
10. Vox: “We came here to fight that battle, to fight the battle of ideas, to fight the cultural battle, whoever is in front of us, without fear of anything or anyone, every day of our lives, and they don't realize that they are the ones who will be left alone. Long live Spain!”
11. Casado (PP) starts off with criticism of the futility of Vox's motion of no confidence. Says the PP has twice as many MPs as Vox and thirty times as many senators. Sánchez had an alternative majority two years ago, “and you don't”, he says to Abascal.
12. Casado squares up to Vox. He says Abascal's party and the left need each other and the rhetorical clash is good for both of them. Abascal should “give up all hope” of taking the PP's place. He chucks Vox's bad results in Galicia and the Basque Country at Abascal.
13. Casado equates Abascal on the right with Sánchez on the left. He frames the PP in the centre, as a conservative obstacle to the growing polarization of the other two. He criticises Vox's anti-European stance.
14. Having managed yesterday to make Sánchez look like a statesman with his comments on patriotism, today Abascal has managed to allow Casado to frame the PP in the sought-after centre of the political board in Spain.
15. “Vox is part of the break-up block with Sánchez and Iglesias”, says Casado. Announces the PP will vote “no” to Vox's motion of no confidence. Criticises “vindictive anti-politics” on both extremes. Praises globalisation, rights, the EU and the Spanish regional system.
16. “We're not like you because we don't want to be like you. It's that simple”, Casado says. Frames Vox's “fear, anger, resentment, revenge, insults, anger, manipulation, lies” against a PP that represents “freedom, laws, coexistence, Europe, municipalities”.
17. “The old PP is back”, says Abascal. Casado today has contributed to the “brutal cartoon image of Vox”, he says, adding that he did not expect such a speech from the Popular Party.
18. Abascal says he would prefer Casado and PP just thank Vox for supporting the regional governments in Madrid, Andalusia and Murcia. He says that Vox will, however, show “historical responsibility” and will not now cause the collapse of those regional governments.
19. Abascal realises from the rostrum what the PP has just done to Vox in terms of national political positioning: “Today you have put yourself exactly in the middle in a way that has left me absolutely puzzled, Mr. Casado”.
21. After Casado's speech in Congress, the PP sticks the knife in on Twitter with a campaign against Vox: “Abascal only offers Spain fracture, defeat and anger”. “Yes to Spain, no to Vox” is the hashtag.
22. “We are the calm force of Spaniards”, concludes Casado, in case anyone had not understood the new centrist position of the PP he has presented this morning in Congress, in contrast to what he considers the extremes of Vox, Podemos and the PSOE.
24. After first praising, in a moderate tone, Casado's speech (PP), Iglesias (Podemos) cannot help going on to a more rally-like criticism of the right. “Now the monster is devouring you”, he says, for example, to Arrimadas (Ciudadanos).
25. Vox loses on a tactical level this morning (Casado scores rhetorical goal), will not achieve operational aim (winning vote), now has a strategic problem (PP positions itself in the centre), and even a grand strategic one (Iglesias praises brilliant conservative speech).
26. Casado chucks Fukuyama's ideas and books at Iglesias. He says he knows Iglesias has read the author's latest work. So there's still some hope left, perhaps. Some politicians read books and think about relevant ideas.
28. After Lastra labels Vox's “miserable Franco project”, Abascal says, summing up, that his party will fight against the “lefty dictatorship” by demanding “free elections” "in the streets". Does he have some complaint about the legitimacy of the last general election in Spain?
30. Sánchez announces that the government is “stopping the clock” of the controversial reform of the judiciary in order to open up negotiations with the PP.
32. It's over. Vox fails. Only its 52 MPs vote in favour of its motion of no confidence. No one else. No other MP from any other party. The other 298, against.
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