Spain that pacts, Spain paralyzed | No …

By Agustín Fontenla From Madrid
On August 14, the leader of the Popular Party (PP), Isabel Diaz Ayuso, will be invested president of the Community of Madrid with the support of Citizens (Cs) and the far right Vox. She will be the leader of the first coalition government in the Spanish capital and the first to incorporate radical proposals into her program.
This week, in the Community of Navarre, in the north of the Iberian country, the socialist María Chivite managed to form a coalition government with the support of the leftist forces and thanks to the indispensable abstention of EH Bildu, a party whose general coordinator was a member. ETA, the Basque nationalist terrorist group.
The formation of these two governments represents a turning point in Spanish politics and is a way to counter the national scene, where the Party of Spanish Socialist Workers (PSOE) led by Pedro Sánchez will return nearly four months after the elections on April 28. without reaching agreements with other forces that allow it to form a government.
To build its leaders, Madrid and Navarre had to transcend the borders and customs rooted in the recent political history of the country. The Community of Madrid has been governed by the PP for thirty years. However, always by governments composed only of popular leaders. This time, the lack of a majority forced Pablo Casado's force to seek the support of Cs and Vox. With Cs, the negotiation was simple, thanks to the coincidences in the matter of fiscal freedom for companies and large fortunes. With Vox, they had to be convinced to get rid of their flagship measures to expel immigrants, limit the fight against gender-based violence and repress the LGTBI collective.
The case of Navarre needed another dynamic. The Foral Community has always been the result of sovereign tensions due to its proximity to the region of the Basque Country. This geographical situation has aroused the suspicions of Spanish nationalism, always preoccupied by aspirations for sovereignty, wherever it may be. For this reason, when the socialist María Chivite formed a coalition government with leftist parties and agreed to be president with the abstention of EH Bildu, the PP shouted into heaven. Its spokeswoman, Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, came to equip EH Bildu with the perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in Catalonia in 2017, which left 15 dead and around 100 wounded.
For the political badyst and director of Cuartopoder.es, Sato Díaz, it is legitimate to agree with Vox or EH Bildu because "in a representative democracy, it is necessary to hear and agree To hear with representatives elected by popular sovereignty. "In the case of Madrid, he emphasizes that" the differences between the PP, the C and the Vox are reduced. "As for the government that formed the socialist Chivite, Díaz says that" it is the best representation of the national, social and political plurality that exists in Navarre and that makes it possible to transform the ghosts of the past ".
For its part, anthropologist Nuria Alabao, points out that the standardization of Vox within a government is not as risky as its anti-immigrant rhetoric and that women's rights are normalized. "During the recent election campaign, we saw how Vox's speeches turned the talk of the rest of the parties to the right," said Alabao. With regard to EH Bildu, he considers that there is no risk, because it is a party comparable to any other social democratic force in Spain. However, he observes that "the ghost of ETA has for many years been a political variable that has mostly served many right-wing parties" and, although the conflict with ETA is over, "the right intends to support this ghost because he thinks that he can still be functional for his speech. "
The government coalitions in Madrid and Navarre are not the only ones to have been formed in recent months after the regional elections in Spain. Others have occurred in large communities such as Andalusia or in major cities such as Barcelona. However, it does not appear that this trend can easily be captured at the national level. Since the elections on 28 April, the PSOE and Podemos have unsuccessfully negotiated a coalition government, which now leaves room for new elections.
For Díaz, the reasons why coalitions are not possible in the national state go back to the end of Franco's dictatorship and the period of transition to democracy. "After the fall of the government of Adolfo Suárez (Democratic Civic Union, 1977-1982), the Spanish political system was based on bipartisanship (PP and PSOE) that would maintain unity in the so-called" problems of democracy ". "State" referring to the unit. territorial, and the monarchy and its secrets, which also includes its enterprises ". In this context, any external force to bipartisanship that would call into question these "state problems" will find it difficult to enter the Spanish government.