Resilient, survivor, phoenix... call it what everyone sees fit, but there is unanimity in Spanish politics regarding the proven resistance of Pedro Sánchez. The Congress scoreboard showed 179 to 171, a larger majority than in the previous inauguration, despite the noise, the manifestos against it, the peaceful protests and the intimidation. Sánchez becomes one of the veteran presidents in Europe (and one of the few progressives) who has survived the pandemic, the extreme right and inflation. A president who also arouses visceral hatred and who faces a legislature marked by two vectors: that of the risky pacts with the independence movement (with the amnesty law as a toll) and the one that is already emerging to his left, with Podemos as an “independent” actor. with whom he will have to negotiate apart from Sumar if he wants the support of his five deputies. And every vote counts.
Five months ago no one was betting on its continuity. The municipal and regional elections in May predicted the change of cycle. The PP came out very strengthened from that event and Alberto Núñez Feijóo saw the perfect springboard towards Moncloa. Sánchez also feared this, who bet heavily on a sudden advance in the middle of summer. The victory of the right seemed so evident that the socialist leader himself placed his collaborators on the lists to guarantee his continuity as deputies in the event of losing the government. But courage and perseverance have always given him results and on the night of June 23 he already made the decision to try the pact with Junts. What's more, he had long suspected that the polls could yield an arithmetic that depended on Carles Puigdemont's party and he had shared opinions with some of his loyalists whether, in that circumstance, it would be viable and convenient to contemplate an amnesty. The journey to securing Junts votes has been more complicated than expected, but the negotiation has borne fruit.
Sánchez ended the investiture plenary yesterday by thanking his party for its blind trust in him during these months of opaque negotiations, while the opposition accused him of an avalanche of immoralities, including adulterating the rule of law. Aware of the pressure on the socialists due to the unpopularity of the amnesty, he greeted each and every one of his deputies once he was sworn in. Just after Feijóo approached to congratulate him with sportsmanship. The gesture seemed to alleviate the verbal tension of the previous day, but the comment that accompanied the handshake did not predict appeasement: “This is a mistake and you will be responsible.” The PP is not going to relax or lower the decibels of criticism of a president whose legitimacy Feijóo admitted, but whom he has accused of selling out his country for Moncloa.
The legislature starts with a chamber (and probably a society) divided into two halves by the territorial question. The amalgam of parties that supports Sánchez only shares one motivation: to stop the PP as long as this formation does not mark distances with Vox. The discourse about the breakup of Spain is seen by most PSOE allies as a threat from the most rampant Spanish nationalism to their aspirations for self-government. This is the reason why PNV agrees to live in the same block with Podemos, ERC or Bildu. Aitor Esteban reproached the popular people for rejecting the amnesty and for being scandalized by it to the point of "wanting to impose on the street what has not been won at the polls."
But the investiture block is now more complex to manage and Sánchez will have to manage it with enormous and subtle dedication. Not only because of the rivalry between Basque nationalists or between Catalan independentists, but because of the Cainite clash that is taking place to the left of him and from which sparks already began to fly yesterday. Irene Montero tweeted: “That Sánchez and Díaz throw Podemos out of the government will make it extremely difficult to move from words to actions.” The five purple deputies will not attend to Sumar's discipline if, as it seems, they do not have a ministry. It is the signal to implement Pablo Iglesias' plan and for Podemos to act independently of the new government, negotiating each law with the PSOE. “The best is yet to come,” Montero and Ione Belarra proclaimed yesterday.
This means that Sánchez's team will have to treat Podemos as if it were their own group, although the purple ones will not leave Sumar's group unless Yolanda Díaz decides to kick them out. Its objective will be to set the social agenda. Every time the leader of Sumar agrees on some point of her program with the PSOE, Podemos may demand to go beyond her and accuse her of docility before Sánchez. In this task they will not be alone, but their intention is to build a kind of tacit alliance that pulls towards the left with ERC, Bildu and BNG, whose balance is 19 deputies. Likewise, on the center-right flank, the PNV will also try to coordinate its position with that of Junts (they have 12 deputies) to stop some of the proposals that Sumar champions within the government.
All of this will force Sánchez and his ministers to extreme their negotiating skills, which they will have to combine with skills for the dialectical clash with a very tough opposition. The composition of the new government, which is expected to take office on Monday, must respond to these premises. The difficulty of survival in the new scenario is evident, but those around the president remember that until now nothing has been exactly easy for them.
