• Former PM warns PSOE to avoid coalition with “Leninism 3.0” of Podemos •
Former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez has called on the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the Socialist party (PSOE) to admit to themselves that each suffered historic defeat at the polls in Spain’s Dec. 20th general election, to avoid a political dance of short-term opportunistic sidesteps and to make concessions that will lead to formation of a pragmatic government of “reform and progress.”
Gonzales, who as leader of the PSOE was Spain’s prime minister from 1982-1996, has said in an interview with the daily El País that he does not favor a “grand alliance” of the PP, PSOE and the centre-right Ciudadanos party, but added that neither of Spain’s two largest parties have the right to veto the other’s attempt to form a government that can proceed to reform Spain’s electoral and constitutional framework, which he said are badly in need of regeneration.
Gonzalez also had a special message for his own Socialist party, warning the PSOE leadership to shun forming a coalition government with new-left, anti-austerity party Podemos, whose tactics he characterized as “Leninism 3.0” and as a movement that seeks to “liquidate the democratic framework that we currently enjoy.”
► Read the Interview at El País in Spanish or in English …
