...and a divisive PP

Yesterday the joint Congressional condemnation for the assasination of Isaias Carrasco, became exactly what it should not have been, another show of division by PP.

During the closed door meeting, Ignacio Astarloa, PP's spokesperson for justice and security in Congress, demanded a mention to the end of the 2005 Congressional resolution allowing the Government to negotiate a peace process in the Basque Country. All the parties refused his demand as unnecessary in a short note of democratic unity. Afterwards, Joan Ridao, spokesperson for ERC, proposed to have all official spokespeople together to read the statement in a show of unity. Astarloa again refused and prefered to do it each one individually. Finally, Astarloa in his statement revealed two details of the negotiations: that the rest of the parties were against the derogation of the 2005 resolution and to include any mention that no political concessions would be offered in a future peace process (this second issue the parties thought wasn't related to the institutional condemnation). Before him, Aguirre, PP's President of Madrid, live in T5 TV station, after the assasination was known, accused the Government of calling Arnaldo Otegui, the Basque Gerry Adams, a 'man of peace'. Mariano Rajoy himself in the morning avoided any strong words but a 'people know what I think' escaped his lips.

The rest of the parties (PSOE, CiU, PNV, ERC, IU, EA, CHA, BNG and CC) all read the joint statement and did not answer questions from journalists. The democratic unity broken again by the same party that had done for the past four years.