The PP, which is still hanging on to Vox and the clumsiness of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, does not represent a vital threat. And Sánchez’s coalition partners have great incentives to stick with him: they can extract more and more concessions from him
Political corruption is similar to farts: they are much more annoying when they are foreigners. Do you remember the beginnings of the ‘Gürtel case’? In February 2009, after the National Court arrested businessman Francisco Correa and opened an investigation that affected the core of the Popular Party, the then president Mariano Rajoy appeared before the media, surrounded by his senior staff, to deliver one of his historical phrases: “There is no PP plot, there is a plot against the PP.”
These are always conspiracies, until proven otherwise. While the right, including its media division, ignored the issue and pretended to be offended, the left (also with its media division) demanded immediate resignations.
The PSOE now has its own problems. There are no sentences and nothing can be taken for granted in the plot that starts from the businessman, or rather commission agent, Víctor de Aldama, but the party itself has designated José Luis Ábalos, former “right-hand man” of Pedro Sánchez, former organization secretary, former Minister of Public Works. The tumor is recognized. It remains to be seen if there are metastases. Attributing the matter to simple fabrications is out of place.
Of course, the judicial problems of the PSOE remain very far (for now) from those that shook the PP during Mariano Rajoy’s mandate and that are still alive: it was not only Gürtel and the crack of Luis Bárcenas (“Luis, be strong”) , but the ‘Kitchen case’, that of former commissioner Villarejo and the “patriotic police”, which continues its course. But they constitute a burden. Especially because the current PSOE has been tailoring Pedro Sánchez to suit him after his defenestration in 2016, his triumphant return in 2017, the motion of censure against Rajoy in 2018 and the subsequent investiture as President of the Government. It is hard to believe that a leaf is moving in the PSOE without Sánchez knowing it.
Therefore, any type of mutiny in the party can be ruled out. On the other hand, it is unlikely that an electoral movement would destabilize the Government: as we said when we were talking about farts, corruption or its shadow greatly outrages the rival and little to its own (you see that the PP survives despite everything and is the party with the most votes). There is no perception, right now, of an economic crisis like the one that took over José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The PP, which is still hanging on to Vox and the clumsiness of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, does not represent a vital threat. And Sánchez’s coalition partners have great incentives to stick with him: they can extract more and more concessions from a government that, as seen with the tax reform package, is forced to juggle to pass laws.
The most likely thing is that Pedro Sánchez will still be there and that the remainder of the legislature (it can be assumed that if he smells a favorable moment, the President of the Government will call early elections) will be full of sound and fury. Which is not good for anyone. Those stale words from Miguel Primo de Rivera’s manifesto in 1923 (“how many who love the Homeland see no other solution for it than to free it from political professionals”) obtain a regrettable resonance in a good part of today’s youth. And it is very bad for the Valencians, who face reconstruction with a political corpse at the head of the Generalitat and with a government on the defensive in Madrid.
#Days #sound #fury
