An extraordinary photographic work by Óscar Corral, from the Efe agency, taken in 2016 at the Galician Rapa das Bestas festival, illustrates very well the current Spanish political moment. There is the spirit of the time. The horses move very restlessly, crowded, imprisoned, and a man who tries to hold them is about to fall at his feet.
The Rapa das Bestas is a festival that is celebrated annually in various towns in Galicia, in which the horses are collected and locked in an enclosure to cut their manes and tails, heal their wounds and disinfect them from parasites. Once the rapa is carried out, they are returned to the mountain. One of the best-known rapas takes place in the parish of Sabucedo, in the Pontevedra municipality of A Estrada. The photograph that illustrates this page was taken from Sabucedo, where the shearers offer the mane to the town's patron saint, San Lorenzo. Again a good parallel with today: the mane of Pedro Sánchez, indomitable socialist leader since 2015, may have begun to be cut in Galicia. Perhaps the Galician elections of February 2024 will one day be known as Sánchez's Rapa.
Galicia has done poorly for the President of the Government and when he was preparing to archive that terrible result with a lightning trip to Rabat to greet King Mohamed VI, the Koldo case has exploded, the first episode of corruption that affects his circle of trust. , to the first circle of trust of the man who regained the leadership of the PSOE by bending the will of the nomenclature of his party and a good part of the Spanish establishment.
Sánchez's faithful were few in 2017. There were José Luis Ábalos, deputy for Valencia, Francisco Toscano, legendary mayor of Dos Hermanas, Francisco Salazar, first deputy mayor of Dos Hermanas, José Antonio Rodríguez Salas, mayor of Jun (Granada) and expert in social networks, Adriana Lastra, deputy for Asturias, Santos Cerdán, organizational secretary of the PSOE in Navarra, and the faithful Koldo García, socialist councilor of a town in Navarra, escort in the Basque Country during the worst years of ETA, employee of a security company, sentenced to two years for a fight in which a man was beaten, pardoned by the Government of José María Aznar and years later decorated with the White Cross of the Civil Guard at the initiative of the Minister of the Interior Juan Ignacio Zoido (PP) for his services in the Basque Country.
Koldo García Izaguirre, man for everything. Koldo was the custodian of the endorsements for Sánchez's candidacy in the 2017 socialist primaries. When the PSOE won the May 2018 motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy, Barakaldo's bodyguard became the Minister of Development's trusted man. (later Transport and Mobility), José Luis Ábalos, at the time secretary of organization of the PSOE. Transportation, public works, territorial investments and party organization. Ábalos was one of the pillars of the new situation and the giant Koldo became his shadow. From that shadow he began to weave a network to make money from the epidemic, according to the ongoing investigation at the National Court. With the profits obtained, he bought two apartments on the seafront in Benidorm and a rustic plot in Polop, a municipality in the province of Alicante with expectations of real estate growth. The National Shotgun changes hands but is always there.
Ábalos is not accused of anything, but Koldo García was always by his side, his wife was also an employee in the Ministry of Transportation, as well as a brother. Both are also accused of being part of the commission collection network. It is not a peripheral case like that of the Canary Islands Tito Berni. Ábalos is a key man in the president's political career. In September 2016, after being forced to resign as leader of the PSOE, Sánchez thought about leaving politics. Two people convinced him not to throw in the towel: Mayor Quico Toscano y Ábalos, a tough Valencian fighter, former PCE militant.
It is the second critical moment for the Valencian. In the ministerial remodeling of July 2021 he was going to be Minister of Defense and some mechanism stopped the appointment. He was left out of the Government and the organization secretariat. It was never known why. Ábalos remained silent and was recovered as a deputy in the last elections. He is tough, he is unbreakable. He refuses to resign. He wants to agree to his departure and the president showed him the door yesterday at an event in Ferraz. Will his resignation as deputy be enough? Whether Sánchez does not lose his temper over the Koldo case depends on how his situation is resolved.
Politics is contingency. The poor result in Galicia highlights the territorial weakness of the PSOE. Oil stain on the cover of the Resistance Manual. Ábalos before his second fall. The amnesty law to be approved. The 2024 budgets to be approved. Yolanda Díaz making major mistakes in Galicia. The left pillar of the coalition becoming dead weight. The Basque elections in April may once again show a fragile PSOE. The European elections in June will surely shift to the right, pushed by the winds of rearmament coming from Eastern Europe and uncertainty in the United States. And Alberto Núñez Feijóo sending increasingly less encrypted signals to Junts: we cannot give you amnesty, but we could find other arrangements.
These days the harsh voice of the opening scene of a Galician rural drama titled As Bestas resonates in Spanish politics. Everything is falling apart.
