A deadlocked legislature? Some still don't know what Pedro Sánchez is capable of

Under normal circumstances, in a parliamentary democracy like Spain, the legislature would have been considered finished today.

Governing without legislative power: Pedro Sánchez is announcing a dictatorship
Sánchez exposes one of his worst vices with his deplorable attitude in the Senate

Junts announces it will block all government laws

This morning, the Catalan separatists of Junts announced a veto against all laws presented by Pedro Sánchez's government. Parliamentary spokesperson Miriam Nogueras confirmed that the national budget will be one of the blocked laws. The coalition government, formed by the Socialists of the PSOE and the Communists of Sumar, needs Junts' support for any initiative and has thus far been willing to pay a huge price for it —or rather, has made all Spaniards pay it.

This break between Junts and Sánchez is due to the rivalry between Puigdemont's party and Aliança Catalana, another separatist party that has decided to strongly advocate for an anti-immigration discourse, both for immigration from the rest of Spain and for immigration from abroad, and rejecting all support for the PSOE. According to the polls, Aliança could go from 2 to 14 seats in the Parliament of Catalonia, taking up to 11 seats that currently belong to Junts.

Legislature blocked and early election?

Some media outlets and analysts have raised the possibility today that the legislature is over, given the deadlock, and that early general elections will be called. That is what would happen in any other parliamentary democracy where the government lost the support of a key coalition partner. But Spain is not a parliamentary democracy like the others.

Sánchez has already expressed his desire to govern without the legislative power

Some seem not to have realized yet that Pedro Sánchez is capable of doing anything to stay in power, as he has demonstrated so far by trampling on the rule of law, degrading democratic institutions, attacking the judiciary and media outlets critical of the government, and even refusing to condemn acts of violence against a journalist and political rivals, as we saw last week with the attack in Pamplona and as we saw before with the attacks on Vox members (Sánchez has not condemned any).

We must remember that a year ago Sánchez already expressed his desire to govern without legislative power, that is, ignoring any block that the Congress and the Senate may place on the actions of his government. So far, Sánchez's government is, by far, the Spanish government that has approved the most decrees in the almost half-century of democracy in Spain, constantly resorting to a mechanism limited by Article 86 of the Constitution to cases of "extraordinary and urgent need", but which Sánchez uses for anything.

Sánchez is governing by decree and ignoring the Parliament

In fact, as La Razón pointed out a month ago, Sánchez has approved 53% of his laws through the decree-law procedure, ignoring the rejection by Congress and the Senate. No other Spanish government has resorted to this procedure so often. We are witnessing the beginnings of a dictatorship, which is the best word to describe a government that believes it has no limits.

A government even willing to encourage violence in the streets

This shows that the Socialist leader doesn't care about having lost his parliamentary majority: Sánchez is in power and knows it will be difficult to remove him from it, because it is unlikely that parties as disparate as the PP, Junts, and Vox will agree to present a motion of no confidence. Sánchez will not call elections unless he knows he will win, and to reverse the poor results the polls are giving his party (and to cover up the corruption scandals affecting his government) he has already shown himself willing to encourage violence in the streets, applying the recipe confessed by the socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in 2008: "It suits us that there is tension."

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Photo: PSOE.