At least 170,000 people gathered in central Madrid for another large protest against the controversial Catalan amnesty law that has allowed Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to secure a second term in office.
Sánchez was sworn in on Friday after winning an investiture vote the previous day that came almost four months after July’s inconclusive snap general election. Although the conservative People’s party (PP) narrowly beat Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE) in the election, it was unable to secure the parliamentary support to form a government even with the backing of the far-right Vox party and other smaller groupings.
However, the PSOE and its partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance managed to cobble together the necessary votes by enlisting the support of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties in return for offering an amnesty for those involved in the unsuccessful, unilateral push to secede from Spain six years ago.
Sánchez’s decision to agree to the proposed amnesty – which he had opposed in the run-up to the election – has infuriated his political opponents, who have accused him of hypocrisy, cynical manoeuvring and putting his own political survival before the country’s interests. The move has also angered many Spaniards on the left and right.
The demonstration on Saturday, which was held by Madrid’s Cibeles fountain, was called by more than 100 groups and associations who had urged people “on the left, the right and in the centre” to turn out. The central government’s delegation to the region put attendance at 170,000, making it more than twice as big as the demonstration held in the capital last Sunday. Organisers put attendance at “close to a million”.
Police had to cut off a main road in the capital after the protest to stop hundreds of people attempting to march on the prime minister’s official residence, the Moncloa palace.
Some protesters carried placards reading “separation of powers”, “traitors” and “not in my name”, and there were chants of “Sánchez resign” and “Viva España”.
The demonstration, which followed other large rallies across Spain in recent weeks, was attended by the leaders of the PP and Vox.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the PP’s leader, once again accused Sánchez of committing a fraud against the Spanish people in order to stay in power.
“Sadly, we find ourselves at a very difficult moment and democracy’s warning lights are flashing,” he said on Saturday. “Being in power is one thing but being right is another. [The government] may have the MPs it needs, but it knows it doesn’t have the votes to do what it is doing.”
Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, said his party would not “give up this fight” and would continue the struggle through “sustained social mobilisation” and by “alerting our international allies to what is happening in Spain”.
The PSOE’s congressional spokesperson, Patxi López, said that while protesting was a right in any democratic system, Saturday’s demonstration was motivated by rightwing rancour at Sánchez’s return to office, rather than the proposed amnesty.
“Once again, the right and the far right are taking to the streets,” he said. “Feijóo and Abascal are together again but they’re not protesting against the amnesty; they’re there because they haven’t accepted that the social majority of this country has opted for a progressive government and said no at the ballot box to a government that would have had Feijóo as prime minister and Abascal as his deputy prime minister.”
Although the large protests of recent weeks have been overwhelmingly peaceful, there have been violent clashes between police and the fascist and neo-fascist groups that have gathered outside the PSOE’s Madrid headquarters over the past fortnight.
Sánchez has argued that the amnesty law is needed to heal the wounds of the recent past and bring about greater social cohesion. His administration has also stressed that the move is in keeping with the pardons the prime minister issued to nine jailed Catalan leaders two years ago.
Many Spaniards reject the act of clemency, which will benefit hundreds of people, including the former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who fled Spain to avoid arrest after orchestrating the failed push for regional independence in October 2017.
A poll in mid-September showed that 70% of voters, including 59% of people who voted for the PSOE in July, were against the amnesty law.
