The former president of the Spanish government Felipe González has burst into the political news with an interview at his own door. No media outlet has requested his presence. It is a soliloquy designed by himself to influence the state of opinion and the negotiations of the PSOE with Junts. Just look at the seal of the Felipe González Foundation that guarantees the ownership of the images in the upper right corner of the screen. The video, on YouTube, has a nondescript title: Felipe González reflects on the current political situation. The intervention begins half nothingstriking down the logical preambles of a presentation: “Today I want to say that in the face of the growth of violent acts, demonstrations that go beyond the limits of coexistence, I want to call for serenity”. One camera offers a general shot and the other a close-up with a disturbing result: Felipe González looks directly into the camera, as if he were speaking directly to the viewer. The headlines that González releases are framed in this more closed plan.
The politician, sitting in an armchair, talks to himself. Or rather, the editing has eliminated the interlocutor. It is obvious that initially there would be someone who would ask him questions. Some questions we assume were chosen by Felipe González himself in order to be able to develop without obstacles all the points that he was interested in commenting on. But in the final cut the questions were erased, there is no trace of the dialogue. It is a monologue built only from his interventions. This creates a strange orality of discourse. The reflection leads to an intermittent vehemence that even leads him to imagine other potential interlocutors. When he talks about the negotiations with what he considers “the ends of the political spectrum” even addresses directly: “What you want is not for me to recognize that it is a nation. It intends to break the cohesion and unity of the Spanish nation-state”. As the soliloquy progresses, she gains in passion. There are more and more moments in which she lifts her back from the back of the chair to turn towards the camera. It is symptomatic that, in 27 minutes of monologue, he does not show any concern about the fascist symbols that were brandished in front of the PSOE headquarters.
Felipe González has done honor to Juan Palomo, “I stew it, I eat it”. He bursts in today appealing for a new call for elections. And thus contributing to further destabilize Pedro Sánchez’s investiture. Without a medium to endorse it, without an interlocutor, without questions and without precedents of this type of soliloquies from this Foundation, even looking at the camera at some moments as if it had an official character, it is necessary to consider ourselves at the service of who and whose interests Felipe González has made that appearance.
The post first appeared on es.ara.cat
