Obstacles in Sanchez’s investiture path

IT looks as though presidential candidate Pedro Sanchez might have to postpone his hopes of an investiture debate before the end of October.

Although Sanchez studiously avoids pronouncing the word “amnesty”, preferring to refer to “reconciliation” and the “generosity” of other parties, his strategy relies entirely on making this concession to Cataluña’s pro-independence parties.

Sanchez also faces the task of reassuring his own voters that the prospect of another PSOE government is worth the turmoil and incomprehension attached to wiping the slate clean for everybody involved in the secessionist Proces.

Meanwhile, back in Waterloo, Carles Puigdemont, president of the shortlived Catalan republic who fled Spain in October 2017, has placed another obstacle in Sanchez’s path.

Sanchez’s amnesty proposals will first be examined by the Consell de La Republica association, which Puigdemont controls.

Its 1,064 members will confirm on October 24 whether they favour blocking or backing Sanchez’s investiture.

Presumably Puigdemont hopes to make Sanchez sweat as, whatever the council decides, it is already wielding power by scuppering the incumbent’s plans for an October investiture.

Puigdemont holds no official post in the Junts per Catalunya pro-independence party although to all effects he is its leader.

Nonetheless, and despite the direct link between the Consell and Junts, party sources in Cataluña quoted by the national daily, ABC, stressed that the Consell decision would not influence  “in the least” Junts’ decision.

“Inside Junts, Junts decides what happens,” the same sources told ABC.

Felix Bolaños, President’s Office minister, also emphasised that the Consell had “nothing to say” about the internal processes of other parties.

It has also been pointed out by the Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia, which is nationalist but by no means pro-independence, that Sanchez appears to repeating the tactics he used when pardoning the politicians imprisoned for their part in the October 2017 UDI.

This allowed the public to vent their disapproval, disgust and displeasure before he went ahead once the worst was over.  But can he get away with it twice?