The parties use the judge’s summons to Begoña Gómez in the middle of the campaign to try to mobilize their supporters

Electoral campaigns are an uncontrollable entity, and even more so in the last week, when everything moves at breakneck speed. When it seemed that the PP had entered an alley with a very difficult exit with Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s strange commitment to a possible motion of censure with the support of Junts, something that absolutely contradicted its strategy focused on Pedro Sánchez’s pacts with Carles Puigdemont and the amnesty, everything turned again. Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, who is handling the case of Begoña Gómez, burst into the electoral campaign in an unprecedented way, announcing in the final stretch a summons to the president’s wife for July 5 as an investigation for possible influence peddling. that he could have easily waited until next week, with the elections already concluded, and that he also arrives before even listening to the witnesses that he himself called. The decision outraged the Government, which openly criticized it, and the president himself, who once again published a new letter to the citizens, but this time not to announce a reflection on its continuity, but to guarantee that he will not be “broken” and that Her decision to continue is “firmer than ever” but above all to try to use this decision as a boomerang to mobilize the left against her.

In the Government, in the PSOE and in Sumar, many leaders believe that this movement by the judge in the middle of the campaign is so crude that it can have the opposite effect, mobilizing progressives to vote in the European elections, something that seems like a very complicated task. Sánchez clearly opted for that message in his letter, which concluded with a call to progressives to vote on Sunday against this maneuver in which he sees the leaders of the PP and Vox behind. “All lie. A big hoax. One more. As for me, rest assured, they won’t break me. And, given that they are trying to interfere in the electoral result of next June 9, I hope their promoters – Mr. Feijóo and Mr. Abascal – find the response they deserve at the polls: condemnation and rejection of their bad tricks.” , noted Sánchez’s text, in which he clearly criticized the judge for announcing this decision five days before the elections, when it is usual for politically sensitive issues to wait until the campaign is over. This is what, for example, the Supreme Court did with the ruling of the processes in 2019, which he had ready, but he waited to make it known until the April and May elections of that year had passed. Yolanda Diaz He also criticized the moment and encouraged voting. “That the summons is notified today is, ironically, to say the least striking. Despite all the tricks, we are going to work to give the Popular Party a democratic defeat,” he assured from Oviedo.

Resignation request

On the contrary, in the PP they believe that this judicial decision reactivates their campaign and in Vox they also seemed euphoric. The popular ones, with Feijóo at the head, quickly launched themselves to ask for the president’s resignation due to the summons as an investigation of his wife, equivalent to the accusation before the last reform of the law, and recalled that it is something that had not happened with no partner of any president since the recovery of democracy in 1978. Almost all the relevant leaders of the party quickly competed to see who would say the harshest thing about the case. The PP spokesperson, Borja Sémper, even compared Sánchez to Donald Trump, who was convicted last week of 34 different crimes by a New York jury.

Feijóo and the members of his leadership had already been clinging to the Begoña case because they are convinced that it represents a fundamental drain on the Government and especially its president. In fact, they threatened to summon Sánchez in this last week of the campaign in the Senate to talk about this matter, but in the end they did not do so, according to sources from this party, due to the risk that the president would victimize himself and take advantage of the appearance at his favor. But now, with the judge’s decision, announced in the middle of the campaign, the PP believes that its strategy has much more strength and has launched a rush.

In the Government, in the PSOE and in Sumar, they believe, on the contrary, that the effect could be contrary to what was sought, that is, demoralize the progressives and activate the vote of the right-wing bloc. Various ministers and leaders consulted believe that the Begoña case It has no real path, as the Civil Guard report would demonstrate, which finds no evidence of crime, and that the wear and tear it could cause has already been assumed, because the opposition has been dealing with the matter for weeks. But they do trust that something they see as a very obvious maneuver to influence the electoral result can activate many progressives who had planned to abstain in elections in which a very low turnout is expected, and could reinforce the PSOE’s comeback that the Most surveys have detected it in recent weeks, before this decision by Judge Peinado.

Privately, Executive sources maintain that, from a procedural point of view, there is no logic for the judge not to have waited to announce the summons at least until next Monday, when the elections will have already passed. Peinado could have called Begoña Gómez to testify as a first measure, and it would not have been strange, they explain. But they believe that, once he decided not to do so and wait to gather evidence and question witnesses, there is no logic in him announcing his subpoena as investigated before having heard those witnesses. And even less so, they point out, when the Civil Guard report that he himself requested indicates that there is no indication of a crime in Begoña Gómez’s actions.

In public, the Government is more cautious and avoids a direct clash between the executive branch and the judicial branch, but the spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, did not hide the discomfort that Sánchez would later finish with her personal letter. “We want to convey our strangeness and our tranquility. Strangeness at the chance of making this information known precisely this week and through the media. And peace of mind because we know that there is nothing here, as the Civil Guard report said. What we have here is a campaign of the mud of the PP and Vox and far-right groups such as Clean Hands or Hazte Oír [promotores de sendas denuncias contra Begoña Gómez]. “This is the shameful opposition we have in this country,” Alegría said from the Council of Ministers table.

The campaign suffers a new unexpected turn of uncertain consequences, which will probably mark it until the end. Polls can no longer be published, but the parties make their tracking internal surveys – surveys based on daily interviews – and in the coming days we will see what effect it has. Some and others trust that it will serve to mobilize their own. Elections with low participation and fairly close positions are decided by a few hundred thousand votes. Everything counts. And that is why the Government is convinced that there was political intention in the judge’s movement. On Sunday we will know what consequences this controversial decision had.

_