The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has highlighted the “good news” which, in his view, entail the Democratic victory in the midterm elections held this Tuesday in the United States (U.S.) and the triumph of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil’s presidential elections at the end of October.
In the session of government oversight in the full meeting of the Parlament, and in response to the intervention by ERC spokesperson Josep Maria Jové, Illa has defended that “People are for peace, for decency, for common sense, for public services.”
Jové has reproached that the decision by the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to advance the general elections to next November 29 will imply, in his view, that the PSOE cannot put into effect the agreements reached with Esquerra Republicana.
In the face of these criticisms, Illa has replied that Sánchez has chosen to bring the elections forward in order to respond to problems such as housing, pensions, and the protection of public services, in light of the risk of an executive of the “involutionist block of PP and Vox”.
In this context, the Catalan president has underscored the message that, according to him, the ballot boxes in the U.S. and Brazil are sending: “We’ve had good news,” he has emphasized, insisting that the electorate has bet on the idea that institutions will safeguard the interests and well-being of the whole of society.
DEFEAT OF THE “HATE DISCOURSE”
Later, in his turn to respond to Vox leader in Catalunya, Ignacio Garriga, Illa has again referred to the election events in the U.S. and Brazil and to Vox’s alignment with the former U.S. president Donald Trump and the former Brazilian candidate Flávio Bolsonaro. In his view, “The hate speech you make is a hate speech that was defeated in Brazil a few weeks ago and yesterday in the United States.”
The president has added, addressing Garriga, that “I hope that Mr. (Santiago) Abascal and you do not leave as Mr. (Flávio) Bolsonaro did from the country when you return to lose the elections on November 29 and you have the nerve to stay here to face your responsibilities,” referring to Bolsonaro’s departure to the United States after losing the presidential elections.
Garriga has replied that neither the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, nor he has any intention of abandoning the country: “We are going to stay and we are going to apply cuts to the policies that you have been driving forward for a long time.”
CUT “SUPERFLUOUS” SPENDING
The also secretary general of Vox has specified that his party raises cuts in "superfluous public spending" and in subsidies to unions, employers' associations and parties if they manage to govern after the elections of November 29.
According to Garriga, "We are going to put an end to the ecosystem of cronyism of socialist buddies or lovers in Adif and Renfe to strengthen the welfare state for Spanish families and workers. We are going to sweep them away at the ballot box."