This Sunday, November 30, Spain will see a model of citizen protest that reflects a radically different conception of democracy than what could be seen last Sunday in front of the Supreme Court.
Because just a week ago, a few hundred people gathered in front of the Supreme Court to denounce the conviction of the State Attorney General as a “coup plot”, Alvaro Garcia Ortizfor revealing confidential data about the couple Isabel Diaz Ayuso.
On the other hand, this Sunday, the Popular Party has called a demonstration at the Debod Temple against the corruption that has led the former minister to prison. José Luis Ábalos and your advisor Koldo Garcia.
The difference between both protests is not only political. It is of democratic quality.
Demonstrate against a final judicial ruling chanting insults such as “fascist judges” and “coup plotters in toga” constitutes a frontal attack on the separation of powers.
The attorney general was convicted of a crime classified in the Penal Code after a process with all guarantees.
The fact that the ruling is uncomfortable for the Government does not make it arbitrary or political. Judges apply the law and citizens can disagree with their decisions. But eroding the legitimacy of the judiciary undermines the very foundations of the rule of law..
Those who identified justice with fascism last Sunday were not defending democracy: they were putting it in danger.
This Sunday’s concentration responds, however, to an opposite logic.
The PP’s protest is not directed against any court nor does it seek to question any judicial resolution.
On the contrary, it celebrates that Justice has acted by decreeing provisional imprisonment for two central figures in the Koldo case, a corruption plot in the purchase of masks during the pandemic that affects the heart of the PSOE.
Demonstrating to demand political responsibilities in the face of solid evidence of bribery, embezzlement and criminal organization is a legitimate exercise of active citizenship.
This is, in fact, what we should expect from a healthy society..
The context aggravates the urgency. Ábalos was Minister of Transport and Secretary of Organization of the PSOE. Koldo García, his right hand man.
The Civil Guard attributes both of them to the leadership of a network that awarded million-dollar contracts in exchange for bribes.
The judge Leopoldo Puente The provisional detention was based on an “extreme” risk of flight and on requested sentences of up to thirty years.
We are therefore not facing a political hunt, but rather the ordinary functioning of the penal system against alleged criminals.
It is striking that Vox has decided not to attend Sunday’s protest, calling it a “party act.”
The formation of Santiago Abascal He participated in the first demonstrations against the amnesty, but now he distances himself from a call that Feijóo has defined as “civic, open and without acronyms”.
This absence, far from weakening the PP, positions it as the only real opposition to Sanchismo. And it fuels the suspicion that Vox ‘works’ for Sánchez in a clamp against the PP.
While Vox opts for testimonial purity, the popular ones assume the leadership of citizen outrage against corruption. The former presidents Aznar y Rajoy They have already confirmed their attendance along with practically all of the territorial barons.
The PSOE will probably try to minimize attendance, as it did after the demonstration on June 8 in Plaza de España. Surely, he will talk about “prick” and “failure”, forgetting that just a week ago he was barely able to gather a few hundred people in front of the Supreme Court.
But the arithmetic of those gathered matters less than the legitimacy of the cause.
Protesting against judges who condemn a high official for breaking the law is an exercise in sectarianism.
Protesting against politicians who allegedly looted public coffers in the midst of a pandemic is an act of democratic hygiene.
EL ESPAÑOL defends that democratic legitimacy is not granted by demonstrations (a form of citizen participation that this newspaper considers lawful, but anachronistic), but by the ballot box and the subsequent submission of elected officials to basic rules of obedience and respect for the rule of law.
In Spain, today, the president has the first, but has voluntarily and contumaciously ignored the second.
Street protest is, therefore, the only form of democratic civil participation that Pedro Sánchez allows today in Spain, given his repeated refusal to call elections. Better, in short, protest in the streets against corruption that in favor of it and against the judges.