Former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero this Thursday called the “national priority” that Vox has imposed on the PP in the government pacts of Extremadura and Aragon “unconstitutional” and “discriminatory.” “Names are born free and equal, priority is preference, superiority,” he asserted at a public event of the Andalusian PSOE in Jaén to support the socialist candidate for the presidency of the Junta, María Jesús Montero.
“The same people who talk about hindering and discriminating against migrants are talking about depopulation, but the formula for that empty Spain to recover population will be with migrants who want to live here, whom we have to integrate, just as Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina treated thousands and thousands of Spaniards who went there in the post-war period,” Zapatero insisted.
For the former Prime Minister, migrants who come to Spain to pick olives, care for the elderly, or work in construction come “looking for a future, as many Andalusians had to do during Franco’s regime.” For this reason, he referred to the “national priority” that popular and far-right parties have enshrined in their regional government pacts in Extremadura, a week ago, and Aragon, this Wednesday: “That is not Spain, nor democracy, nor dignity, nor human rights; it is unconstitutional, contrary to all international treaties, it is discrimination.”
Regarding the leaders of the Andalusian opposition, Zapatero regretted that opposition leaders criticize María Jesús Montero, former Vice President of the Government, for the regional financing system she proposed, and recalled that the two main models have been that of the minister and the one he approved during his time as President of the Executive, which incorporated the recognition of the “historical debt” for Andalusia.
“They have accused and criticized her so much. Why? Because María Jesús Montero is loyal, she has courage, she is brave, and she has never looked out for herself. She has always looked out for the good of the country and the good of Andalusia. One must have courage and bravery. I admire her,” Zapatero praised.
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Earlier, María Jesús Montero began her speech referring to Zapatero as her “talisman” and called for optimism and the mobilization of the militancy: “I am not going to be the president of conformism or resignation; I am going to be the president who transforms Andalusia, who revitalizes public services, who defends what belongs to everyone. That is my roadmap.”
And then she attacked the demeanor boasted by the Andalusian president Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla: “You can see it on people’s faces, you can see it in the eyes of our neighbors… that people are tired of appearances, that the only responses they get are pats on the back or hollow smiles that do not address the needs of citizens or provide concrete answers to improve housing, healthcare, education, or dependency.”
To Moreno’s continuous allusions to the need for stability in Andalusia, Montero replied: “But what stability does a society have when there are more than 200,000 people waiting for a surgical intervention that should have arrived a year ago, or what stability does a society have where the elderly do not have access to dependency care?”
Montero also asked the militants to “turn that indignation into votes.” “Andalusia, a land rich in talent, in capacity, a land that pushes forward, will never resign itself, just as it did not resign itself then to being in the last car, to being in a second gear, to having first-class and second-class citizens. So we trust in victory, we trust in the ability that the men and women of our party have in word-of-mouth to transmit the hope, the enthusiasm, and the dignity of this land,” she emphasized.
