The deterioration of the political debate: “The level of sectarianism is very high”

A formal act at the Cortes leaves an unusual picture, with several politicians of very different ideologies amicably discussing a common concern. At the center of the debate, the tension which has gripped Congress and the Senate and which embarrasses everyone in some way. “Often the presidency has to draw more attention to us than to its own party colleagues,” says one of the politicians present. Confessions which remain in this informal group and which are still difficult to reveal publicly. And the feeling of degradation is widespread in the streets, already becoming one of the main problems of Spanish society according to the latest CIS barometer. “The level of sectarianism is very high. The debate of adjectives goes beyond that of ideas and often people vote for or against a proposition without reading it, only observing its authorship. Politics has lost humanity and depth in favor of fanaticism and this is seen in the fact that parliamentary debate has fallen,” says critic Javier Arenas, senator of the PP and one of the active politicians most authorized to s to express on this subject. It is not for nothing that he has behind him almost 50 years dedicated to politics in different positions of responsibility. From the City Hall of Seville to the vice-presidency of the Spanish Government. allows him to speak with full knowledge of this deterioration that he himself has experienced. The reasons why this deterioration has accelerated in recent years are diverse. From the fragmentation of Parliament to the emergence of social networks. passing through the current weakness of the Executive or the emergence of radical formations which do not feel affection for the institutions. On the contrary, there is a series of causes which have caused this periodized decline, much more pronounced these. recent years. This is due to the mutation of Spanish parliamentarism, which has gone from an imperfect two-party system to an equally imperfect two-party system, in which both camps compete for legitimacy, accusing each other of intransigence,” said Juan Fernando López Aguilar, another of those voices who sit speaking about parliamentarism Related news The No FAPE standard calls for “ending” the “crispation” and “attacks on the press” ABC “The main task of journalists is to question. , to investigate and report the behavior. irregular”, he recalled. The current PSOE MEP, who was Minister of Justice under the presidency of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is one of the active politicians who best knows this evolution of the debate parliamentarian, in which he has been installed for a quarter of a century and to which he devoted many hours of study during his youth Something unthinkable in many current members of Congress and senators. at the Congress was the culmination of a personal dream and a life cycle. I had studied the agendas of the constituent cycle sessions a lot and I learned a lot from them. Nowadays, no one prepares their speeches on. a written basis. Everything is designed, not for the citizen or the political opponent, but to have an impact on social networks. The good parliamentarian is now the one who manages to get a tweet to attract the attention of the occasional diver. , explains López Aguilar, who goes further by talking about how the speech reaches the people. “Political communication consists of confirming the negative emotions of one’s audience and not going against the other’s reasoning or building a bridge. All of that has completely disappeared. All this has now disappeared and parliamentarism is designed like a bar counter. It became football, speaking in clear terms, so people understood it. shared by Arenas, who also believes that all this confrontation creates “disaffection”. “People have a very different image of politicians than decades ago, when being a parliamentarian meant social recognition and now presumption of guilt. “We must rediscover the spirit of harmony of the Constitution, when politicians were not enemies, but simply adversaries.” A big sit-in And for this, both popular and socialist propose a broad reflection of all those who are part of the current political framework. A big sit-in to rediscover the habits of yesteryear, avoiding insults and disqualifications. “The atmosphere is unbreathable and Parliament cannot continue like this, it cannot be a schoolyard where people do not listen to each other. We must call an interparty meeting to reorient the rules, knowing what we risk. There comes a time when someone needs to call someone and say “let’s sit down because this needs to be fixed.” We must once again be exemplary and remove insults from the cameras,” says López Aguilar of an idea that Arenas reinforces. “Out of loyalty, and when possible – which is not currently the case – a deep reflection by the two major parties on the values ​​of politics would be necessary, because people disconnect when they see that there is no “There are only clashes and insults between us”, “We are witnessing unimaginable episodes, because we are going through a moment of extreme weakness” Javier Arenas, senator of the PPArenas, talks about bringing the two major parties together, because for him like for López Aguilar, the decline began with arrival. of the most radical populist groups, from both the left and the right. “Populism is not useful to society. Many of his proposals are erroneous and unrealizable and offer easy answers to deep problems”, affirms the PP senator. López Aguilar, for his part, speaks of the contempt for the institutions of these formations. “They tend to insult and humiliate the adversary, because in reality they are not addressing him, but rather the public who can then see him on social networks This generates a worrying contagion effect. but rather a disruptive criticism of institutions and a country without institutions cannot function. If we erode them, there is nothing left,” says the MEP, regarding a phenomenon that is reproduced on a scale. international finding forms, as when Donald Trump a few days ago described Kamala Harris, his rival in the next elections, as “mentally disabled” “There is a real risk that this contagion effect will make parliamentarism irrecoverable”. López Aguilar, who emphasizes that the situation in the European Parliament is not so serious, because more attention is paid to forms. “There, we cannot display t-shirts with a political slogan and anyone who shouts is immediately expelled. In Congress or the Senate, excesses are more and more frequent and worrying,” he insists. The debate is multifaceted and the concern is clear in Spanish parliamentarism, prisoner of its own drift. In fact, in the control sessions, there is no more dialogue, only the exchange of preconceived proclamations which do not respond to an exchange of convictions “We are witnessing unimaginable episodes, because we are going through a moment of extreme weakness”, says. Arenas, looking back, to the times when debates in Congress were focused on ideas and not on tensions. Times when parliamentarism displayed a respectful confrontation that disappeared in favor of its own protagonists.

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