The PP’s star proposal as an alternative to the PSOE’s amnesty, a new crime of “constitutional disloyalty” that would punish political parties that promote an illegal referendum or a unilateral declaration of independence with dissolution, will have to wait. The popular leadership has decided to put it in a drawer for the moment and postpone its registration in Congress with the argument of preventing it from operating as a smokescreen for the debate on the grace measure. The PP has missed the opportunity to include it in the partial amendments to the amnesty law and is also in no rush to register it as an independent initiative in Congress. The popular party maintains that they continue to defend that their proposal for a new type of criminal offense is “essential”, but at the same time they are aware that the dissolution of parties is very controversial and overshadows the debate on the measure of grace. Alberto Núñez Feijóo opened up to soften it, while voices from the PP question it and ask for clarification: “It is difficult to explain.”
The debate on the amendments to the entire amnesty law, held on January 10 in the Senate, showed that the PP has choked on its alternative proposal to the grace measure. That day, the dissolution of parties, which the Popular Party had included in its amendment to the entirety, overshadowed the discussion on the amnesty, the issue on which the main opposition party preferred to focus. In its place, in addition, the PP received criticism of its approach from all parliamentary groups, even from Vox, despite the fact that it agrees to outlaw the pro-independence formations, which made the hesitations expressed by Feijóo ugly for the popular ones. The amendment to the entire PP fell and, therefore, the crime of constitutional disloyalty ended its parliamentary career for the moment. For now it will not be registered once more until the popular ones find the opportune political moment, they point in the popular direction, so as not to give the Government, they indicate, a smoke screen to cover up the amnesty.
The initiative is questioned by some jurists, who consider that dissolving political formations that promote an illegal referendum or unilateral declarations of independence would mean a 180-degree turn in the conception of the democratic organization endorsed by the Constitutional Court.
But within the PP there are also voices critical of this legislative proposal. Important popular leaders consider the proposal, which the party announced on January 3, “surprising” and find it “difficult to explain.”
Other party sources also criticize the PP’s “missteps” in its treatment of pro-independence formations, because the leadership has defended that Junts is a valid political interlocutor – and in fact the leader of the PP in Barcelona, Daniel Sirera, has acknowledged having maintained meetings with some of its highest representatives― and at the same time is committed to promoting its dissolution if it falls on the conduct of the process. “In the morning I meet secretly, and in the followingnoon I outlaw you,” a popular leader jokes regarding the PP’s attitude towards Carles Puigdemont’s party.
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These voices ask that the proposal to dissolve parties be “well defined”, taking into account that Spanish democracy is not militant. “Our democracy can outlaw acts, not ideas. Therefore, these acts, potentially grounds for illegalization, must be perfectly classified,” they claim.
On the other hand, in Genoa they defend that the initiative is well accepted not only among the Vox electorate, but also among part of the PSOE electorate, and especially among young people.
The PP proposal says that when a legal entity – such as a party – is responsible for a crime of calling an illegal referendum or unilateral declaration of independence, which would be classified as such, “the penalty of dissolution will be imposed, unless the before the opening of the oral trial, a legal entity carries out unequivocal acts of active collaboration aimed at clarifying the facts and restoring the constitutional order, in which case the penalty of suspension of activities of six months to five years or a fine will be imposed. from six months to five years.”
After the criticism he received as soon as he became public, Feijóo opened up on January 9 to soften it, in the sense that the suspension of the political party would first be considered “and then, only in very aggravated cases, the dissolution would occur.” said the leader of the PP, who was open to modifying it in the parliamentary process. For now, the PP leaves it up in the air when it will register it once more.
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