Pedro Sánchez has no doubts. Despite the devilishness of the electoral result this Sunday, the acting chief executive is convinced that he will be able to form a government again. This is how he was transferred this Monday to the leadership of the PSOE, who received him almost like a hero. To remain, as expected, in Moncloa, Sánchez will have to count not only on Yolanda Díaz and the support of all the parties that already facilitated his investiture in 2019 (PNV, EH Bildu, ERC and the BNG) but, at least, with the abstention of the formation of Carles Puigdemont, who has already put a price on his vote: amnesty and referendum. Only then will he be able to overcome the 171 noes that ‘a priori’ would add up to the PP, Vox, UPN and the Canary Islands Coalition. “I am sure that this democracy will find the formula for governability,” he defended before his own without specifying more.
Sumar has already gotten down to work to try to approximate positions with Junts and is pressing to close a coalition agreement with the Socialists as soon as possible. But Sánchez made it clear that he has no intention of running. And he did not even refer in his first internal intervention after the elections to the formation led by the former president of the Generalitat, who fled from justice. He believes that all the parties, “from the PP to Junts”, must be allowed to digest the results. Thus, everything indicates that he will let a few weeks pass before starting negotiations. “Let people rest and enjoy the holidays,” he said almost by way of a humorous concession.
In his spirit is, among other things, letting the PP “cook in its sauce.” The Socialists understand that Alberto Núñez Feijóo will appear for the investiture but they speculate that he will not be able to resist at the head of his formation, after an insufficient victory that left him far from his own expectations (136 seats compared to the 160 with which they came to dream in the popular leadership) and without obvious allies to reach the 176 deputies of the necessary absolute majority. The shouts of “Ayuso, Ayuso!” Launched by supporters of the party gathered on Sunday night before the PP headquarters are, in his opinion, a sign. “The last time that was shouted in Genoa, there was someone who went out the window,” they ironically allude to the former president of the popular Pablo Casado.
For now, Sánchez rules out an immediate meeting with the opposition leader. If it occurs, internal sources say, it will already be in September, but the abstention that Feijóo will probably request as the leader of the most voted force (with a difference of just over 330,000 votes compared to the PSOE) is out of the question. It is not being raised in Ferraz nor is it raised by those socialist barons to whom the PP leader appealed at some point during the campaign. Even less after having seen how the norm that the popular demands for itself was not applied in Extremadura or in the Canary Islands or in municipalities such as those of Valladolid, Burgos and Toledo, where the PSOE won on 28-M.
The acting president intends to emerge as a solution to a problem of institutional instability. But first, it needs citizens to see clearly that Feijóo embodies this problem, because it is not just a matter of other parties, as Ferraz pointed out, assimilating the results of 23-J, citizens and progressive voters also have to end up concluding, as Sánchez claims, that some kind of understanding with Junts is desirable, even if it is as a lesser evil.
“Great opportunity”
That Feijóo is first seen failing in the attempt to be invested can pave the way for a discourse in which, however, they are already working in the PSOE: “There is a plural Spain, which is not monolithic and that is what the Congress reflects.” The former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who put the campaign on his back and came to hold more rallies and interviews than Sánchez himself, defended this Monday even in La Sexta that a governance agreement that includes those of Puigdemont can be a “great opportunity” to “advance and form a model for the integration of diversity”.
The Socialists claim that after these five years of Sánchez as head of the Executive -with pardons, repeal of the crime of sedition and bringing ETA prisoners closer to Basque prisons-, the independence movement has seen its representation in the lower house greatly reduced (Catalan, but not Basque). The PSC has become the leading force in Catalonia and the votes achieved in that autonomous community, in Euskadi and in Navarra have served to a large extent to substantially shorten the distance that, according to all polls, separated the PSOE from the PP. Finally, the gap has been only a little more than one point (from 31.7% to 33.05%) and 14 seats (from 122 to 136). His interpretation is that more is achieved with “dialogue” than with “confrontation.”
Not everyone sees the matter as simple as Zapatero. The former president of Extremadura and member of the socialist leadership, Guillermo Fernández, avoided in fact this Monday getting wet before the question of whether he rules out an electoral repetition. There are other territorial leaders such as Javier Lambán, who also lost the presidency of Aragon in the last elections, or Emiliano García-Page, who won an absolute majority in Castilla-La Mancha, who have been very reluctant to the pacts with the secessionists in the past. For now, however, they are silent.
Now, the PSOE is savoring a defeat with the taste of victory and presenting it as a feat. “Spain has said no to involution and regression and the PSOE is a reference in Europe and the world,” Sánchez boasted this Monday.
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