The three-way debate between Pedro Sánchez, Yolanda Díaz, and Santiago Abascal on public television has been almost impeccable in form. Nothing to do with the harshness of the face-to-face held nine days ago between the socialist candidate and the leader of the PP, the great absentee tonight who the three contenders seem to have wanted to expose by taking pains to defend their positions, severely opposed, without losing their forms. A poisoned way of remembering Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Throughout the exact 90 minutes that the program moderated by Xavier Fortes has lasted, it has become clear that this Sunday the struggle is being fought between two blocks, the right – which today has the advantage of the polls – and the left, which has not thrown in the towel.
The coordination between the president of the Government and socialist candidate and his vice president and leader of the Sumar platform has been more than evident. A division of tasks. Yolanda Díaz has confronted Abascal with greater vehemence than Sánchez, who has placed himself in a more temperate zone of the debate.
The shared objective of both has been clear. Mark the perimeter on the left. Define the borders. Yolanda Díaz, she had to use this scenario to ensure her position in the polls that place her, in most cases, somewhat ahead of Vox in her voting expectations. And she partly she has achieved it.
Díaz has barely confronted Sánchez while both have ended up dealing with you, something unusual in a format like this. The question remains as to whether this strategy will serve the leader of Sumar to combat her internal enemy: the useful vote that opts for the PSOE.
Sánchez, for his part, has remained in a thoughtful background in the clash with the ultranationalist leader, which has not prevented him from once again questioning – he already did so in the face-to-face with Feijóo – Vox's constitutional convictions.
Sánchez had to try to persuade that part of the most focused electorate in this debate, which to this day still does not know whether to opt for the right or left bloc in Sunday's elections.
In this coordinated game, Feijóo has been quoted on numerous occasions more frequently by Yolanda Díaz, who has presented Abascal as the representative of the PP leader on the set of public television. Díaz has come to ask him about the already old photos of the leader of the PP with the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado. This has been the most aggressive moment of the debate. The ultranationalist leader has diverted the trajectory of the bullet: "ask Mr. Feióo"
Santiago Abascal had a difficult role in that situation. He has tried to assert his toughest argument by questioning gender violence – at this point, in his reply, Sánchez has affirmed that the law of only yes is yes is a good law – or the policies against climate change when he has pointed out that the government's green agenda "is paid for by farmers and the middle class of this country who cannot afford a car to enter their cities". An agrarian Abascal denouncing the urban and cosmopolitan elites. A classic of the culture war.
However, the ultranationalist leader has not managed to place his messages clearly. It was a difficult task that Yolanda Díaz, who was occupying the lectern to her left, has taken it upon herself to avoid.
Curiously, in the same way that Díaz has barely tried to separate himself from Sánchez, neither has Santiago Abascal done so with his future ally, the leader of the PP.
In the confrontation, the President of the Government has replied to Abascal his recent statements about Catalonia: "We believe in the unity of Spain, but not slapped like you." Abascal, has returned to Bildu and Sánchez's alliances. But even at this point, he has not done it in the same way as Núñez Feijóo in the face-to-face nine days ago, who has become, from tonight, the symbol of the most angry politics of this campaign.
Deep down it has been an all against Feijóo without it being too noticeable.
