“There was poetic justice.” This is the conclusion of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero after the grotesque vote on the labor reform last Thursday. “Own goals go up on the scoreboard. Now they are crying from the corners, but, please, what they wanted was to win the vote through the back door with two turncoats,” said the former president at a campaign event in his land in which he has sheltered, together with Pedro Sánchez, the PSOE candidate, Luis Tudanca. The former socialist leader has congratulated Sánchez for the approval of the labor reform. “You have complied with the workers,” he told him: “Spain won and the PP lost. They are specialists in scoring their own goals. That is what is going to happen to them in Castilla y León.”
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Zapatero’s forecast comes at a time when Alfonso Fernández Mañueco is down and Vox is still on the rise. The PSOE is hopeful of being able to repeat the result of two years ago, win the elections and hopes to be able to govern with other forces, although they recognize the complications. “They called elections not for Castilla y León. They called elections, they had a majority in Parliament, they were elections called by the PP, for the PP to hold primaries plus [Pablo] Married, he needs them well, of course. The anxiety of being married, I don’t know if it’s because he thinks of Ayuso, led them to call these elections that we Castilian and Leonese saw with some perplexity in February, that it’s cold here”, he said in the pavilion where the act was held after a cold night in León.
Zapatero has assured that “patriotism is demonstrated in the opposition” and has vindicated the work that Tudanca has done, which reached an agreement with Mañueco for reconstruction after the pandemic. The former president has mentioned, for example, the anti-terrorist pact that he signed with José María Aznar or Sánchez’s support for 155 in Catalonia.
Constantly interrupted by the applause of the nearly 1,200 attendees, Zapatero has said that the vote on the labor reform not only shows the “mentality” of the PP, which he has accused of wanting to put the Euroweight funds at risk, but has also reminded them the reproaches they make to the Government for its support. “Whoever votes with Bildu and the nationalists is very democratic. Now if they vote with other political forces, pay attention to Spain. That is the cynicism of the right in this country”, he has expressed.
“What is relevant is that perhaps the most important promise of the presidents and of this government, which was to change a labor reform that was harmful and recover rights for workers for the first time [ha reconocido el expresidente, que en la crisis de 2010 hizo grandes recortes] with a great social pact. That promise has been fulfilled by Pedro Sánchez and I feel very proud”, he pointed out.
“Faced with the noise, after what they have tried to tell us this week, the good news is that there is a labor reform. Today this country is fairer. The workers have recovered their rights,” Tudanca exclaimed: “This is not the reform of the Government. It is the reform of the Government, of the CEOE, of the CCOO, of the UGT. It is the reform of the workers and businessmen. I wonder if they are not with the businessmen and unions, who are they with?” .
The candidate has vindicated Zapatero’s “will” and has promised to govern “with the people”. “Of course, patriotism is demonstrated in the opposition. That is why here in 2019, after winning resoundingly, when they made a government pact, it never occurred to us to say that they were an illegitimate government, we never said that the institutions were in danger. Never,” Tudanca said.
“Mañueco said that the labor reform is the demonstration of a weak government, which has not been able to keep its partners. I thought he was talking about him,” he ironized before recalling that he “dynamited” the Government of Castilla y León with Citizens and budgets in the region. “This land is not your farmhouse, this land has already freed itself from its chains, this land is going to put you in opposition on February 13,” said Tudanca, who has claimed the “stability” that socialist governments provide against the coalitions that the PP has led, such as in the Community of Madrid or Castilla y León.
“Some are the interests of Genoa and others are its terror of corruption, no one can run like their own shadow and it is long. They have also been caught here,” Tudanca said before recalling that the Prosecutor’s Office has asked to investigate the PP for the primaries in which Mañueco was elected. “We have a clean look. We have nothing to hide. There are only two alternatives: either the PP governs with Vox or there is a PSOE government. There are more of us who want change, decency, public health, public education, we want our young people to be stay here to study and work. We are more”, he settled.
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