The struggle for feminism bleeds the government coalition

So many things have happened since then that hardly anyone remembers, but the protagonists have not forgotten. The first failed negotiation between the PSOE and Unidas Podemos for a coalition, which led to the electoral repetition, was broken by two things: the Ministry of Labour, which the Socialists did not want to cede, and the Ministry of Equality, which Carmen Calvo had at the time, the Pedro Sánchez’s main negotiator. She resisted for hours, María Jesús Montero intervened, Alberto Garzón appeared, and finally, when everything was already very limited, Calvo wrote a wasap to Pablo Echenique: “Equality isn’t worth it either?” The negotiation had already broken down. That would be the last message.

Since then, Equality -and especially the law of only yes is yes― has been at the center of the coalition’s worst moments. And now it has reached the perfect storm: the PSOE, fed up with the fact that the negotiation to reform the law did not advance between Justice and Equality, decided on Tuesday for political purposes, although not formally, to intervene in the powers of the Ministry of Equality, in the hands of Irene Montero. And she has done it in full preview of 8-M.

On the same day, Montero saw how a parity law in which he has had no participation was presented by Félix Bolaños before the Council of Ministers and before society, at a press conference, by Nadia Calviño, the first vice president. And how the socialists began the process to rectify their star law with their vote against. At the cabinet meeting, according to several of those present, none of the discrepancies that are bleeding the coalition dry were expressed. Everything is done outside. Within the Council of Ministers there is practically no political discussion. In fact, despite being clearly a law that affects her, the one that requires parity in the Government and in listed companies, Irene Montero did not say a word about the norm that Bolaños presented without Equality having influenced in any way. Several questions at the press conference pointed to this conspicuous absence of Montero at the table, but the spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, dodged them: “We have many women in this Government, in addition to a good Minister of Equality: we have three vice presidents,” she smiled. , while looking at Calviño, the woman with the most power in the Executive.

The message was very clear: in the face of the closure of Podemos, according to the PSOE’s vision, the socialists, as a large group, have decided to intervene politically and fight not to lose the connection with feminism and to solve the enormous problem that the feminism has generated. law of only yes is yes with more than 700 sentence reductions. “Podemos is staying in a very small place, it is speaking to a very minority audience. The vast majority of society wants to change this law”, they insist in La Moncloa, convinced that everything has been tried in the negotiation to come up with the agreed reform and it has been impossible due to the closure of Irene Montero. In Podemos they believe that it has been the other way around, that the inflexibility of Pilar Llop, Minister of Justice, has prevented an agreement that they saw feasible. The image of Irene Montero with hers inseparable from her Ione Belarra in the solitude of the blue bank on Tuesday during the debate on the consideration of the PSOE reform on the law of only yes is yes, Enduring the downpour of criticism of his law and the negotiating failure, he was very eloquent. The image of a day that marks a very deep wound in the coalition. Perhaps, the most serious of all that he has suffered in these three years and two months, because it denotes something more than a political confrontation, also an emotional distance different from those experienced up to now.

The question that ran through the halls of Congress was evident and repeated: is this sustainable? Can we carry on as if nothing had happened after a plenary session in which the PSOE and United We Can have publicly eviscerated their miseries and have said everything to the delight of the right-wing bench, which seemed to be glimpsing the beginning of the end of the coalition? They all seemed very angry. The PSOE, with the intervention of Podemos: “Unpresentable”, even said the spokesman, Patxi López. And Podemos, with the decision of the Socialists to carry out the reform with the PP: ”They have gotten us into this, let them fix it”, clamored the representatives of Podemos. The parliamentary spokesman of the socialists considered at night in an interview on Cadena SER that the UP leader in the coalition Executive should have had more initiative. “It seems to me that Yolanda Díaz should have taken a more proactive position, it is not enough to say ‘they reach an agreement.’ But do something. Put a proposal on the table to see how we can agree and bring positions closer, because I repeat again the only proposal that has been on the table has been that of the socialist party, the only one, “said López.

But, after the anger, comes the analysis. And there, seen calmly, none of those consulted really believes that there is a risk of a definitive break. “There is much more that unites us than what separates us,” summarized the spokeswoman, Isabel Rodríguez. Sánchez’s hard core is clear: breaking the coalition would agree with the right and would make the heart of the president’s electoral strategy impossible, which consists of vindicating the coalition management and everything that has been done with almost 200 reforms. Tens of billions of public money invested to protect the working middle class and many companies, especially the smaller ones, to achieve a way out of the crisis completely different from the previous one: with more jobs than ever and a much better recovery. stronger than expected.

Podemos does not seem interested in breaking up either, because its commitment to the coalition government is strategic —so much so that they were willing to assume the risk of an electoral repetition to achieve it. And much less the rest of United We Can, with Yolanda Díaz at the helm, who at every opportunity she can talk about “taking care of the coalition” and leads a project called Sumar. So? How is it followed? Well, according to several leaders, assuming the coup, concentrating each one on his electoral campaign, and looking less and less at each other. With a forced coexistence for the greater good, which is to continue making reforms —the housing law is pending— and to vindicate what has been done up to now as the best way to ask citizens to bet on the re-election of the Executive against to the other coalition, that of the PP and Vox.