The national spokesperson and deputy secretary of Culture and Sports of the Popular Party has accused the trade unions this Monday of promoting a "political" general strike with the aim of "favoring" Pedro Sánchez during the electoral campaign. In the same vein, the spokesperson for the Popular Group in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has emphasized that this is a "political strike managed" from the Government "against the opposition".
After admitting by the general deputy secretary of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, that this is a strike "against the opposition", Sémper has warned that "the partisan use of the trade union movement does a disservice to the credibility of the unions," insisting that this is a "political strike".
In an interview on RNE, reported by Europa Press, Sémper has highlighted that "there have been more than enough reasons to demonstrate in defense of workers' rights and they have not done so," and argues that calling it now, in the middle of the campaign, is "an eminently political decision with the intention of favoring the political action of Pedro Sánchez".
"Instrumentalization" and criticism of the Government's role
Ester Muñoz has criticized that the campaign director of the PSOE defends that "it is a campaign against the PP and not against the Government, when usually strikes are against the Government".
"When the Government promotes strikes against the opposition, that is called something else and does not happen in democratic countries," the popular spokesperson pointed out in an interview on Antena 3, also reported by Europa Press.
In her opinion, they are facing "a political strike managed from the instances of the Government and the power". "You can be in favor of it or you can be against it, but that it is political, I believe that nobody thinks otherwise," she emphasized.
Muñoz has recalled that "it is not a coincidence that in eight years the unions have not called any general strike," "as if workers had not suffered," and that "now suddenly, in the middle of the electoral campaign, they call a general strike".
In this context, she pointed out that it is "evident" that "people are living worse than three years ago" and that Sánchez's Executive "has destroyed the middle class" in Spain, although she insisted that what is "unacceptable" is the "instrumentalization" of citizens that, in her opinion, occurs with this protest. Therefore, she stressed that it is "important that on November 29 people go to vote" because "it matters who governs".
Criticism of the "maneuver" with the housing decrees
Furthermore, Sémper has labeled as a "democratic nonsense" that the Government has decided to bring back to the Permanent Deputation the housing decrees that the Plenary of Congress rejected just a few days ago. He has warned that an "alarming" precedent is being created and has reproached the president for justifying this "maneuver" before the Permanent Deputation.
In contrast to Sánchez's words, who has stated that "Parliament turns its back on the people," Sémper has reminded him that his own legitimacy as head of the Executive "is based on the fact that Parliament itself invested him": "This is a kind of use and abuse of the legitimacy of the Congress of Deputies."
In the same vein, Ester Muñoz has defended that this is a "political maneuver" and has emphasized that royal decree laws "are intended for situations of extreme and urgent necessity," something that, she has said, does not occur in this case, because Sánchez has been in power for almost eight years and has done "nothing." Additionally, she has denounced that it constitutes a "fraud of law" because "the same decree law, with some technical corrections, has just been overturned by Parliament."
Muñoz has stressed that with Sánchez, citizens "find it much more difficult to access housing, whether for rent or purchase," and has recalled that before the arrival of the PSOE in Moncloa, housing was "the number 16 problem for Spaniards" and now it has become the first.
Amnesty and Puigdemont's role in the general elections
Regarding the impact that the Constitutional Court's decision on the amnesty of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who is fleeing justice, may have at the polls, Sémper considers it will be "very relative," because "everything that had to be mobilized" is already "quite clear."
When asked whether the amnesty for the leaders of the procés has served to resolve a political conflict, Borja Sémper responded that "what happened in Catalonia was an assault on constitutionality" driven by a Govern that "attempted to subvert the constitutional order and override the plurality and acceptance of the plurality of Catalonia."
In his opinion, what hindered that challenge was "the reality" of Catalan plurality and the application of the Rule of Law. And he has highlighted that the most significant aspect of the Constitutional Court's resolution is that it has endorsed amnesty for "the embezzlement of public funds" which, as he has recalled, the independentist leaders used to pursue "a political objective on behalf of".
Nevertheless, the leader of the PP has concluded that "the amnesty and everything surrounding the amnesty process is a profound political error that sets a negative precedent in a Rule of Law such as that of Spain".