A tricky one

TENS of thousands protested in the centre of Madrid on January 21, demanding the resignation of the president of Spain’s PSOE-Unidas Podemos government, Pedro Sanchez.

Supporters and voters of the Partido Popular (PP), virtually extinct Ciudadanos, and far-right Vox were there to voice support for “Spain, the Constitution and Democracy.”

According to the organisers, half a million protesters poured into Plaza de Cibeles. The central government’s delegation to the Madrid region put the number closer to 31,000 but either way a very large number of people were crammed into a plaza more often associated with tumultuous Real Madrid victory celebrations.

Sanchez was visiting Valladolid, capital of the Castilla y Leon region, at the time. This gave him the opportunity of declaring that anyone wondering what life would be like under a hypothetical PP-Vox coalition need look no further than Castilla y Leon where the PP governs thanks to Vox, whose votes were rewarded with a regional vice-presidency for Juan Garcia Gallardo.

To the discomfort of regional president Alfonso Fernandez Mañueca, not to mention the PP’s national leader Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, Garcia Gallardo recently decided that it would be a good idea if doctors made women intending to terminate a pregnancy between six and nine weeks to first hear the foetal heartbeat.

The PP groans were almost audible. The party was mindful of the influence that abortion exerted on the US mid-term elections and the trouble that plans to scuttle the existing abortion law caused Mariano Rajoy’s government, prompting the exit of its architect, Justice minister Alberto Ruiz Gallardon in 2014.

Feijoo kept his mouth diplomatically shut, although his silence spoke volumes, while Mañueco hastily assured Castilla y Leon’s doctors and women that nobody would force anybody to do anything.

With elections in May and December all parties have a great deal to say. But the PP will presumably tread with extreme care to avoid losing votes once abortion enters the conversation

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