At the time when the ballot gave 58 seats to Moreno Bonilla, an absolute majority in Andalusia that was not expected of him, the critical mass of social gatherings and commentators began to point to Pedro Sanchez, who would follow election night from the Moncloa. Someone took the lame duck theory out of the textbook, an Anglo-Saxon term that applies to U.S. presidents at the end of their second term when they become irrelevant despite holding presidential office and residing in the White House. They already live in the past even if they are in the present, command and dispose.
You have to be careful before writing Pedro Sánchez's political obituary. But to see the map of Andalusia dyed blue, with no province painted red, should impress the president who has made resilience the usual way to deal with problems in his haphazard public life.
Pedro Sánchez's role on the international stage has lived up to the circumstances. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said she was the most respected leader, along with the Danish Prime Minister. All three are Social Democrats.
A week from now he will host the NATO summit, which will be held in Madrid with two very important issues on the agenda: the war in Ukraine and the request for the incorporation of Sweden and Finland into the Alliance. Atlantic. Foreign policy is often the refuge of many leaders trapped in the tensions inherent in their country's governance. Emmanuel Macron has been talking to Putin on the phone for more than a hundred hours since last December. A few days ago he said that the Kremlin autocrat who has destroyed entire cities in Ukraine could not be humiliated and in the last week of the campaign he moved to Romania and traveled on the Orient Express from Poland to Kiev. along with Scholz and Draghi to interview the brave and desperate Zelenski, who calls for more weapons.
It did not help Macron to get a majority in the National Assembly, where he will have to maneuver between the blocs of Mélenchon's left-wing amalgam and a Marine Le Pen that has burst in with 88 far-right MPs in the Chamber. A failure of Mr Macron's new policy, whom the French have twice voted for as president but on Sunday was given a solemn slap in the face in the legislative elections. This was the title of Libération.
Pedro Sanchez could pass with note in foreign policy. But in politics one does not live on foreign prestige. Nor of the repercussions or the occurrences of the many communication experts who surround him and make his speeches. Just a little bit, someone takes off with moralizing rhetoric or campaigning on networks that confuse everyone.
The coalition government has a serious problem in the coalition itself. On key issues such as security, the war in Ukraine, relations with NATO and the European Union, and the role of the monarchy, there are discrepancies that several ministers of the United We Can are responsible for disseminating to the four winds.
Publicly expressed divisions within governments are often punished at the polls. That effusive embrace between Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias in sealing the coalition government foreshadowed a clash of two very different political cultures, the center-left and the radical left.
But the PSOE had 120 seats and needed for the investiture the 35 offered by Pablo Iglesias, plus the other nationalist, pro-independence and concerted parties, which not only invested it but approved the budgets.
And from that moment on, the problems began because Pedro Sánchez’s discourse and political action are conditioned by the heterogeneity of his partners. In this sense, it is more and more like a lame duck because its maneuverability is more fragile. We can go their own way and the pro-independence activists will not accept any other way out than the rhetoric of independence. Logical.
What would the resilient manual say in such a critical situation? I imagine that it would mean dismissing the ministers of Podemos and limiting relations with the pro-independence movement to the ordinary administration of public affairs. And rule in the minority until elections are called. Who would put a motion of censure on him? I could reclaim the space of centrality even though it may be too late. In Andalusia it has been occupied by the PP led by Núñez Feijóo.
