"Some very powerful changes, with people of proven experience, without experiments... and all of them anti-Sanchistas", admits, not without a certain irony, one of the leaders who revived and pushed Pedro Sánchez to reconquer the leadership of the PSOE after being ousted by the entire socialist establishment in the convulsive federal committee of October 1, 2016.
The highest body of the party between congresses meets again today in Ferraz, to ratify by acclamation the new remodeling of the socialist organization chart carried out by Sánchez and with which he seeks to regain momentum in the face of an adverse electoral cycle.
The appointment of María Jesús Montero as the new deputy general secretary of the PSOE, Pilar Alegría as the new spokesperson for the federal executive or Patxi López as the new socialist speaker in Congress, is in any case very well received in the party and in the socialist federations. Despite some disappointments by the fallen leaders, such as Adriana Lastra, precisely among the small group of what was called sanchismo, which remained faithful to the ousted leader of the PSOE and joined forces to return him to power in June 2017, against all odds , after winning the primaries against Susana Díaz.
In any case, today culminates a process of reunification of all the internal currents that once faced each other in the PSOE, undertaken almost a year ago. In the deep government crisis that Sánchez executed in July 2021, after the electoral debacle in Madrid, two of the mainstays of that nucleus of irreducible ones who remained faithful to the leader who was killed in 2016 have already fallen: José Luis Ábalos and Carmen Calvo. On the other hand, Sánchez forgot past insults and in that remodeling of the Executive and Moncloa he already signed leaders who, in the internal power struggles, positioned themselves against him. Thus, he recovered Óscar López as chief of staff in Moncloa, and incorporated Isabel Rodríguez or Pilar Alegría into the Government.
The federal congress that the PSOE then held in Valencia, in October 2021, deepened Sánchez's determination to bury the hostilities of the past under a reunifying slogan – "social democracy and unity" – to put the entire organization to row in the same direction. “Neither felipistas, nor shoemakers, nor rubalcabistas, nor chaconistas, nor madinistas, nor susanistas, nor sanchistas. We are all socialists ”, they settled in the Sánchez team. And even Antonio Hernando, who as spokesman for the socialist group went from "no is no" to Mariano Rajoy to defend abstention to unblock the governability of Spain, joined the Moncloa team.
The new socialist sanhedrin, which will be ratified today by the federal committee, insists on bringing together leaders who were attached to said conflicting currents in the successive internal struggles. María Jesús Montero always flew freely, but she opted for Susana Díaz in the 2017 primaries. Both Pilar Alegría and Isabel Rodríguez supported Eduardo Madina in 2014 and Susana Díaz in 2017. Patxi López disputed the leadership of Sánchez in the latter primaries, and Óscar López led his campaign.
Ábalos, Calvo or, now, Lastra have already fallen from the core of sanchismo that helped Sánchez rise from the ashes in 2017. But others remain at his side, reinforced and with a seat in the new leadership of the PSOE, such as the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños; o Santos Cerdán, who remains as secretary of the organization. In addition, from that group, Cristina Narbona chairs the party, Margarita Robles is the Minister of Defense, and Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis directs local politics in Ferraz and is the first vice president of Congress.
