Once his new Government was created, a restyling of the previous one, Pedro Sanchez is preparing to reset RTVE, whose Council has significant amounts of power in the hands of the Popular Party but also of Podemos, the losing party in favor of Sumar and Yolanda Diaz and his like-minded people. Irene Montero e Ione Herb They left their positions this Tuesday kicking and staging their anger without concealment in the transfer of ministerial portfolios. The former Podemita Minister of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 threatened with a veganza in her incendiary farewell speech and the circus in which the formation founded by Pablo Iglesias maintains more power is the Public Corporation, where they mourn the departure of Carlos Franganillo at the same time that the current managers are waiting for confirmation of their continuity at the head of public radio and television.
The President of the Government’s roadmap, prepared with the consent of his influential media advisors (Miguel Barroso and José Miguel Contreras, directors of Grupo Prisa), involves consolidating the tandem Elena Sánchez Caballero-José Pablo López as president and general content director, respectively.
The diverse parliamentary majority that has invested Sánchez as head of the Executive will have to serve him to maintain power over national public television. Currently, the PSOE has two similar members of the nine that make up it on the Board of Directors. One is the president Elena Sánchez Caballero, which has a casting vote in the event of a tie and usually relies on Concepción Cascajosa (PSC) to carry out its decisions, the two members chosen by Unidas Podemos, and the one chosen by the PNV. Needless to say, in Podemos they are not happy and they are not going to be docile.
In front of that block are the three councilors selected by the PP and Ramon Colomdirector of TVE with Felipe González, appointed by PSOE quota and who, however, switched to the conservative side and even ran for the presidency of RTVE trying to obtain the support of the ‘popular’ and that of the PNV, which turned its back on him.
It should be remembered that these nine members, who are renewed by a simple majority of Congress and do not have a date to be replaced, elect the president and give the green light or reject the projects proposed by the director of General Contents in meetings normally called once a month. for which they charge 1,000 euros in expenses.
Podemos endangers the ‘Sanchista’ majority
At the end of March 2021, Pedro Sánchez suspended the contest that was electing the new president of RTVE, replacing the interim Rosa María Mateo (sole administrator due to the inability of PSOE and Podemos to agree on a name in 2018), and decided to sign an agreement with PP, Unidas Podemos and PNV so that each of the parties could choose advisors from among the candidates in the contest.
There were eleven positions on the council and the PSOE was left with four that added up to a majority with two chosen by its partners from Unidas Podemos or even the PNV. The socialists appointed university professor José Manuel Pérez Tornero (ultimately president), Elena Sánchez (face of the Telediarios in Felipismo), Ramón Colom (historic former director of TVE with Felipe González) and Concepción Cascajosa (television expert and PSC quota) .
Pablo Iglesias, for his part, did not choose any member of Podemos and opted for José Manuel Martín Medem (director of the PCE’s expression organ, Mundo Obrero) and the trade unionist Roberto Lakidain (of the very influential Workers’ Commissions).
The PP, for its part, appointed three councilors and several key executives in exchange for Pablo Casado’s promise to renew the General Council of the Judiciary, which remains blocked by Génova 13. Casado opted for three journalists traditionally aligned with his party as advisors. game (Jenaro Castro, Carmen Sastre and Consuelo Aparicio), and catapulted Alfonso Morales as general secretary of RTVE or María Eizaguirre as director of the house. The tenth musketeer fell for the PNV into the hands of Juan José Baños, general director of Grupo Noticias (which publishes the newspaper that acts as the unofficial spokesperson for the jeltzale world, Deia).
Problems: the resignation of Pérez Tornero
Pérez Tornero’s resignation in September 2022 came in the middle of a battle between the then president of RTVE and the Barroso-Contreras tandem (who used their strength in El País and, above all, HuffPost) in the battle. The problem aggravated with Colom’s change of ‘jacket’, who began to tune in with the three ‘popular’ councilors. This change compromised the socialist majority, which opted to elect Elena Sánchez as president fourteen months ago without daring to renew the position of the until then president. The reason? Neither the PP nor Podemos were going to support him in the election of an eleventh councilor. This lack of renewal has placed the PSOE as a hostage of the ‘peneuvista’ counselor, who did not support the attempt by Colom to be elected president with the support of Génova 13 instead of Elena Sánchez. Bathrooms, encouraged by Andoni Ortuzar, he refused. Of course, the PNV has blocked several socialist attempts to oust directors chosen by the PP, see Alfonso Morales.
We can complicate the situation
Not even with the support of the PNV advisor do the socialists reach five positions, with which they would at least save votes thanks to the president’s casting vote in the event of a tie. This fact places them in the hands of two advisors related to Podemos, which no longer has anyone in the Council of Ministers and promises to complicate the legislature for Pedro Sánchez. The relationship between PSOE and Podemos on RTVE began to crack when, a few months after the new Board of Directors was elected in 2021, socialists and ‘popular’ people agreed to cancel ‘The Clear Things’ by Jesús Cintora (to the joy of Atresmedia).
This situation complicates the majority of the PSOE and forces Sánchez to seek an agreement with the purples, both to add a majority with the current composition of the Board of Directors and to elect an eleventh councilor, or even to elect a new Council.
The PSOE intends to elect new members to accommodate supporters of Sumar and the Catalan independence movement, which would eat into the power of the PP. Of course, such a mess happens, yes or yes, for Podemos: the PSOE needs the two purple councilors, their two and the PNV one to manage RTVE.
El caso Cintora
Councilor Roberto Lakidan revealed a few months ago that La Moncloa was about to give the green light to the restoration of Cintora, which was going to once again hold a political program at noon on Saturdays and Sundays. But the project fell apart to purple anger, sentimentally divorced from the PSOE on RTVE since the cancellation of ‘The Clear Things’. Then, Pablo Echenique roared with several questions to Pérez Tornero. “In what sense does the cancellation of the program comply with RTVE’s public service mission? Do you think it is ethical and correct that a president of RTVE proposes a vote in the board of directors on the continuity of a journalist with a first and last name? Don’t you think that, added to the political and media campaign, it constitutes persecution and censorship of a journalism professional?” he asked. Echenique He stated that Cintora moderated “a current news program, in which all kinds of topics were touched on and that had voices of all ideologies. ‘The Clear Things came to do this democratic function in a time slot in which private television stations had the monopoly”. And he added that “from the beginning of the program, the PP and the media right began a political persecution of Cintora. And you, Mr. Tornero, decided to agree with them and listen to them. First, with a vote to oust Cintora and then using your personal power to cancel the program”. The then spokesperson for Podemos pointed out that “the results since the cancellation are visible. Political plurality has been reduced and also the programs that have replaced ‘The Clear Things’, without going into their quality and without assessing their contribution to the debate democratic, they had very little audience. And that was before the tantrums that Irene Montero and Ione Belarra exhibited this Tuesday in the transfers of ministerial portfolios.