The next hand is now being played, with a non-party demo to be held in Madrid next Sunday. It’s been called by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, after his plan to persuade the smaller support parties to give way and allow him a vote of confidence against the Government failed to attract any takers between the minor groups (understandably, since Vox wants to illegalise some of them).
The protest, and I kid you not, is called ‘Mafia or Democracy’.
Feijóo, the PP leader, wants his go at being president, even though this would absolutely mean an alliance with Vox. He issued his call for the demonstration on the same day as yet another ex-party deputy, the enabler for the last Minister of the Interior, was admitted to jail.
His particular crimes were money-laundering, criminal organisation and selling on private information.
Feijóo’s call for Mafia or Democracy also happened on the day when Ayuso’s boyfriend was finally corralled and is now to be challenged by the Court over his manoeuvres to avoid paying tax (around €350,000) on the Covid masks he sold to some of those town halls that were buying in an understandable panic back in 2020.
Madrid is a bastion of the Partido Popular, and one could expect many people to turn out for the protest: José Maria Aznar says he’ll be there, along with Mariano Rajoy (whose last government collapsed because of, precisely, corruption), even Valencia’s Carlos Mazón says he won’t be passing up the chance to show his face among friends.
Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso has her hands full, as another court is attempting to interrogate three of her captains about the Protocols of Shame – the emotive name given to the decision to leave the elderly closed off in the residences without medical attention during the Covid crisis (7,291 died).
But no doubt, she will be there too.
The suggestion that the PSOE is the party described as being corrupt is collapsing by the day, with little to show for it – both Sánchez’ wife and his brother, and the Attorney General now almost completely off the hook. The latest scandal for the delight of the Opposition (and the private TV channels) is about an ex local politician from the PSOE and journalist called Leire Díez found to be (privately) investigating the ‘Patriotic Police’ (sic) regarding their subversive activities down the years. Elsewhere, we read that the Guardia Civil are carrying out their own investigation into ‘the Patriotic Police’.
‘Mafia or Democracy’. Is this going to be Feijóo’s final attempt to scold the Government (he’s called five protests so far) before his party congress in early July?
As The Weenie’s Leapy Lee says (repeatedly), ‘you really couldn’t make it up’.