Country Report: Spain & Portugal, March 2023

Spain: The king is naked

The political news in Spain in March was marked, much to the chagrin of the mainstream media, by the motion of censure presented by VOX against Pedro Sánchez’s government. Unlike the motion presented also by VOX in October 2020, in which Santiago Abascal stood as a candidate, this time an independent candidate Professor Ramón Tamames, 89, was chosen. Tamames is a professor of Economic Structure and author of numerous works, known for being one of the key figures during the Transition. A militant of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) since 1956, he was a member of Congress between 1977 and 1979. He also served as the Deputy Mayor of Madrid with Enrique Tierno Galván, playing a leading role in the Moncloa Pacts that marked the Transition. He left the PCE in 1981, became one of the founders of Izquierda Unida, now part of Podemos, and in 1989 joined the Social Democratic Centre (CDS), a centrist party, leaving politics shortly afterwards.

Why Tamames? VOX’s idea in presenting an independent candidate, that is, one who does not belong to Santiago Abascal’s party and with whom there are ideological discrepancies, was to make it possible for other political parties to support the motion of censure. A motion which, as Abascal and Tamames made clear at a press conference, had as its sole objective the urgent calling of new general elections. However, VOX’s announcement of Ramón Tamales’ candidacy provoked a real political earthquake. On the one hand, the media and left-wing parties accused the candidate of having become a pawn of the extreme right in the “circus” organised by VOX, even criticising his advanced age and, in some cases, questioning his mental capacities. On the other hand, the Popular Party and its media, while calling for an early election, accused VOX of strengthening the government and throwing Pedro Sánchez a lifeline.

The motion, debated on 21 and 22 March, served to list one by one all the disastrous policies that socialists and communists have implemented in recent years, but, above all, helped many Spaniards see that the “king was naked” and that the level of most of the Spanish political class left much to be desired. Despite the fact that Tamames’ speech had been made public, Pedro Sánchez spoke about whatever he wanted for an interminable hour and a half. Yolanda Díaz, vice-president of the government, took the opportunity to present her new political project “Sumar”, which separated itself from Podemos in the face of the foreseeable electoral catastrophe. The rest of the speeches from the left and the separatists were marked by the usual references to “fascism” and personal insults. “You hate free women who decide about their lives and their bodies”, proclaimed the socialist MP Patxi López indignantly, forgetting that the feminist “only yes is yes” law has reduced the sentences of more than 800 sex offenders. Incidentally, this same deputy had to deny his attendance, in the face of the accusation of one of those implicated, at dinners with businessmen organised by the former socialist deputy Juan Bernardo Fuentes, “tito Berni”, which ended up in brothels.

Apart from VOX, the only critical voices against the government were those of the Partido Popular and Ciudadanos. However, after harshly criticising Pedro Sánchez, both parties decided not to support the motion of censure. Cuca Gamarra, from the PP, stated that the government has degraded the institutions, attacked businessmen and enacted laws that are a “botched job”, but that it was neither the place, nor the time, nor the right way to carry out this motion of censure: “We will not vote in favour of this motion out of respect for the Spanish people and we will not vote against this motion out of respect for you, Mr Tamames”. Ciudadanos’ Inés Arrimadas listed 43 reasons why this government was the worst in democracy and accused Pedro Sánchez of committing “so many barbarities so often that Spaniards were incapable of keeping their level of indignation so high”. Despite the said 43 reasons, Ciudadanos voted against.

In his reply, Ramón Tamames said he was surprised by the bad image he had seen in parliament and the propagandistic nature of the speeches: “I would not like to speak in these terms. A candidate for a motion of censure does not have to enter into the infighting of the parliament, but I did not expect a meeting like this in the homeland of national sovereignty”. And he accused the parties of “attacking fundamental principles of coexistence” and returning to “the two Spains again, those of 36”.

As expected, the motion of censure was finally rejected. The 52 VOX deputies and one deputy from the mixed group, a former Ciudadanos deputy, voted in favour, 201 deputies voted against and 91 abstained. The media spoke of the “failure” of VOX, of  “Sánchez strengthened thanks to the motion of censure” and of the “serious opposition” of the PP, whose president, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, preferred to attend an agape at the Swedish embassy rather than be present in parliament. Yet, despite this announced failure, the polls have pointed to an electoral rise for VOX and a similar decline for the PP. In barely two months, in the next regional and local elections on 28 May, we will see whether that motion of censure has managed to strengthen VOX, which is the key to real change of direction in Spanish politics.

Portugal: Jihadist attack or psychotic break?

On 28 March, Adbul Bashir, an Afghan refugee who had been living in Lisbon for a year, stabbed two women to death and seriously injured several others at the Ismaili Centre in Lisbon. Bashir was a frequent visitor to the centre and the two victims were his English teacher and one of her classmates, also Afghan. The attacker was shot by police and is in hospital. Prime Minister Antonio Costa condemned the attack and said it was “premature to make any interpretation of this criminal act. Everything points to it being an isolated incident”.

The national director of the judicial police said that “there is not a single indication” that the attack was a terrorist act and that the cause could be due to “a psychotic break suffered by the assailant”. However, some media have reported that the police are investigating possible connections between Adbul Bashir and jihadist groups. If these connections are confirmed, this would be the first jihadist attack on Portuguese soil. In order to clarify this matter, CHEGA, supported by the Popular and Liberal parties, requested an urgent hearing of the Minister of the Interior, which was rejected with the votes against from the Socialists and the left-wing bloc.

Before this attack was committed, on 17 March, CHEGA made a proposal in Parliament to admit in the Constitution of the Republic the possibility of life imprisonment in particularly serious cases, with a review every 25 years. The proposal was rejected by the other parties, who called the proposal “populist”. In his defence of life imprisonment, André Ventura pointed out that Portugal has extradited criminals to countries where life sentences do apply and wondered what would have happened if Bin Laden had been tried in Portugal: “If he had been captured in 2001, he would have been sentenced to 25 years. He would have been free by now and, hopefully, he could still get some state subsidies. Does anyone think this is reasonable?”

At the same time, following the new rejection of the euthanasia law by the Constitutional Court, the Socialists have decided to reintroduce the law. Eurico Brilhante Dias, parliamentary leader of the socialist group, said that changes were being made to the text to respond “fundamentally to two aspects raised by the Constitutional Court”. Asked if he believed that this time the euthanasia law would be approved, the socialist deputy replied: “Of course”.

TAP scandal prompts further resignations

Corruption continues to be make the news in Portugal. In mid-month the findings of the Inspectorate General of Finance (IGF) audit of the Portuguese airline, TAP, were made public. The audit found that the agreement for Alexandra Reis’s departure from TAP, signed when she left the airline to serve as Director of the Treasury in the Finance Ministry, is not valid and therefore “she will have to return to TAP the amounts she received after the termination of her duties as a director, amounting to 443,500 euros, to which must be added at least 6,610.26 euros, corresponding to benefits in kind”.

The first consequence of this audit was that the government dismissed the chairman of the board of directors, Manuel Beja, and the company’s CEO, Christine Ourmières-Widener (both have been dismissed without compensation, so their cases will also be resolved in court). For its part, TAP claims to have acted in “good faith” and has initiated the process to recover the compensation. The government has wanted to close the case with these dismissals and is avoiding any political responsibility, but suspicions of possible influence peddling are growing and could even affect the Minister of Finance, Fernando Medina, whose resignation has already been requested by the opposition parties.