While the public conversation on social networks here revolved around a hoax about Christmas lights ridiculing the PP, Pedro Sánchez prepared a controversial reform of the penal code, tailored to the trial convicts and to support the renewal of the constitution. unblock.
Perhaps Benjamin Disraeli exaggerated when he said that politics is the art of governing humanity through deceit, but it seems that truthfulness is not one of the proper political virtues. In fact, it is practically in the nature of politics to be at war with the truth. The Complutense political scientist Fernando Vallespín puts it well in his work ‘The lie will make you free’, who nevertheless says that politicians today rarely feel the need to resort to it because it is easier to deceive by imagining a reality. building that is tailored to their needs. interests, by creating frames of reference and all kinds of political narratives.
Therefore it is surprising how some fall into lies who have very short legs. It happened this week with the Popular and Vox leaders in Murcia when, after Spain’s football defeat to Morocco, they spread the hoax on Twitter that the headquarters of Aguas de Murcia was lit up with the colors of the national flag by order of the Mayor Jose Antonio Moroccan team Serrano. Within minutes, the publicly traded company denied the biggest one and the hoax was dismantled when images of the same spot appeared in previous years with similar lighting. The serious thing is that this blatant lie spread in such a short time as hundreds of Moroccans celebrated their team’s victory with exemplary courtesy in the streets of Murcia. What would have happened if, in a collective mood of high temperature due to the passions that football unleashes, a hot-headed radical, one of those who follow the accounts of far-right Madrid journalists who gave credence to the hoax, had damaged the headquarters of Aguas de Murcia or who knows if there is something even worse? These things have happened and could happen again in times of polarization and tension, as the parties make irresponsible use of social networks at a time when caution and restraint must be paramount.
The PP did itself a disservice with a clumsiness that ridiculed it and overshadowed debate on far more pertinent issues, such as the implications for the regional economy of the new Tagus Plan or the controversial reform of the crimes of sedition and embezzlement, finally concluded with the explicit amendment of the system of election of magistrates to the Constitutional Court. Yet another episode of a judicial and political institutional crisis of particular significance, where the two major parties have long built their respective narratives to obscure the true heart of the matter, which is nothing but partisan control. the Constitutional Court and the General Council for the Judiciary. Under the pretext that judges’ associations have been politicized, with Alberto Ruiz Gallardón as justice minister, the PP failed to fulfill Rajoy’s 2013 election promise two years earlier that 12 of the 20 members of the CGPJ would be elected from and by judges and magistrates of all categories. What came was a reform of the CGPJ that limited the role of judges’ associations and guaranteed a conservative majority both in the TC and in the highest body of the judiciary, the renewal of which has been blocked by the people for four years to undermine our democratic discredit institutions. .
A reprehensible line of political action of the people and of the members of the CGPJ themselves, which does not absolve Pedro Sánchez of an important responsibility, which, by way of urgency and using the amendments for the reform of the penal code, has the majority necessary to appoint the members of the TC, ensuring the dominance of the progressives in the supreme court of guarantees. A road that definitively breaks any hint of consensus, deviates from the deposit demanded by Brussels and raises doubts about its constitutionality, because, according to the analysis of several experts, suppresses the TC’s ability to verify the suitability and legality of the proposed candidates . All this in parallel with an à la carte reform of the Penal Code to convert the crime of sedition into a crime of public disorder and to reduce the sentences for embezzlement to less than three years if no profit motive is shown. Two proposals adopted by the government based on those who committed both crimes during the trial and will now benefit from these changes. This questionable penal code reform, which the government has been justifying for weeks on the grounds that it makes us equal to other European countries and calms public life in Catalonia, cannot hide the fact that it is a tailor-made criminal case for Junqueras, Puigdemont and dozens of separatists. That is how many socialist barons have understood it, who have shown their resistance. In order to neutralize the negative electoral effect that could ensue for the socialists in many areas, Sánchez has surprisingly created the new crime of illicit enrichment, an attempt to dilute the perception that steps are being taken backwards in terms of political corruption with a reform the crime of embezzlement that revolves around the debatable idea that it is more serious to use public money to enrich oneself than to attack the state or manipulate the game of democracy. It will be difficult for Pedro Sánchez to convince the public if, with this reform of the Penal Code, the looting of public money and its waste in pharaonic works, often useless works, and other “white elephants” that continue to cause serious deterioration of the public life causes bills, such as the Escombreras desalination plant.
The most dangerous political lies are those that have been straining and straining democratic life and its institutions for years, as happened with the 11-M conspiracy theory that began by deliberately misguiding ETA to be involved in the jihadist attack and continued throughout an entire legislature continued to try to delegitimize the PSOE’s electoral victory. As Aznar and Rajoy did with 11-M, Pedro Sánchez has launched his own story to justify these interested nods to the Catalan independence movement, whose support he needs to stay in power and achieve a good result in Catalonia at the overall elections. All this is obviously much more serious than an unrepresentative ‘tweet’ launched by the Murcian PP, although the moral hemiplegia and partisan interest lead many to see only the drop in the other’s eye.
Source: La Verdad
I am George Kunkel, an author working for Today Times Live. I specialize in opinion pieces and cover stories that are both informative and thought-provoking – helping to shape public discourse on key issues. My work is regularly featured across the network’s many platforms, including print media and social media.
