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One of the so-called "barons" of Spain's PSOE has spoken out strongly against the party leader, prime minister Pedro Sánchez. The president of the Aragón autonomous community, Javier Lambán, asserted this Wednesday that "Spain would have been better off" if the Socialists' secretary general had not been Pedro Sánchez, but rather the former Asturian president, Javier Fernández. He stated this during the closing of a panel discussion on 'The state of the autonomies: balance sheet and prospects for the future from the exercise of political responsibility', in which he directly questioned the head of the Spanish government.

At the round table event, he praised the former president of Asturias, Javier Fernández, who also spoke, recalling his agreements to fight against depopulation. Lambán regretted that when Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba resigned from the PSOE leadership - in 2014 - Fernández declined to take over the PSOE general secretary position and it was then that he threw his barb at Sánchez: "This country would have been better off if Javier had taken on this responsibility," he declared.

The leader of Aragón's Socialist government spoke of the crucial meeting of the PSOE federal committee held on October 1st, 2016, describing it as "a coven", which did not decide on a choice "merely between names", but a choice over "two different ways of thinking on how to govern Spain", and on "political alliances", with Fernández leading one option and Pedro Sánchez the other. And he recalled that the current Spanish PM "understood that it was acceptable to govern with nationalists and pro-independence parties".

"The vision represented by Javier prevailed," recalled Lambán, referring to the moment that Pedro Sánchez was ousted from the PSOE leadership. "And this gave rise to Rajoy's investiture", he added, as Socialist abstentions allowed Spain's Congress to break the deadlock that had paralysed the forming of a new government for 10 months. The Aragonese president affirmed: "When someone says that pacts between the PP and PSOE with high standards are impossible, they forget that it was perfectly possible in that investiture and that this opened up a range of possibilities with Javier as interim PSOE leader that could have given rise to very interesting dynamics". Lambán demonized the Socialist primaries that were held later. "Then the PSOE held primaries, an evil invention if ever there was one, and this resulted, together with the populist contamination that in one way or another we are all suffering, in the fact that now all parties are anything but democratic structures. Those primaries were won, overwhelmingly and legitimately, by Pedro Sánchez and, accepting that vote, at least in this political part of the party I feel in the minority, but it is something that has happened many times in the history of the PSOE and it is something that I carry with the greatest possible dignity", he added.

The Catalan issue is not being resolved

In addition, the Aragonese leader maintained that the Catalan issue "is not being resolved" but what is happening is that the Catalan nationalists "are calm because their road map is being implemented", at the same time that he missed the absence of major deals between the PSOE and the PP. As well, he drew attention to "the moment when the majority parties lost their majority in Congress". "We have witnessed concessions to the [Catalan] nationalists, a progressive disconnection that could only have been avoided by major agreements between the PSOE and the PP or with a party, Ciudadanos, which I sincerely hope will, by some means, regain its presence" in the Spanish Congress. "That would have been avoided and, since it didn't happen, we are in this complicated drift that puts at risk Article 2 of the Constitution", referring to the unity of Spain "as synonymous with equal rights between Spaniards", he warned.