“These cries had to be heard in the Moncloa,” some socialist leaders confided to the crowd of militants and sympathizers gathered at the doors of Ferraz, at noon yesterday, who were demanding that Pedro Sánchez not resign as President of the Government. “Pedro, stay!” cried the street, where the PSOE federal committee ended between kisses, hugs and tears.
The first vice president of the Government and deputy general secretary of the PSOE, the Sevillian María Jesús Montero – called upon to assume the leadership of the acting Executive if Sánchez announces his resignation tomorrow – joined in a hug with those gathered in front of the party's federal headquarters in Madrid, chanting their same slogans.
Just like other ministers, who could not help but shed tears of emotion at the imperious demand of the grassroots militancy: Pedro, do not abandon us!
The distance between Ferraz street and the Moncloa palace, where Sánchez resides, is barely three kilometers. Too much, in any case, for the claim of the socialist militancy to be heard out loud from there, the same one that returned the reins of the party to Sánchez in June 2017, after having been defenestrated by the entire PSOE establishment for eight months. before.
But surely the echo of the demand clearly reached the president, wherever he was. “We hope it helps you make a decision,” they settled in Ferraz, while keeping their fingers crossed waiting to know, tomorrow, Sánchez's “verdict” on his future, and that of this uncertain current legislature.
“President, stay. Peter, stay. We are with you!". This was the “resounding message” with which Montero, in the absence of Sánchez for the first time in his intense mandates, began his speech before the federal committee, in an atmosphere of shock and uncertainty, while thousands of militants and sympathizers were already gathered around the doors of Ferraz from early in the morning, despite the rain and cold.
There was no memory of so much agitation and unrest, inside and outside the PSOE headquarters, since October 1, 2016, when the most turbulent federal committee of the party ended up forcing the resignation of Sánchez as general secretary, for refusing to invest Mariano Rajoy. and try to put together an alternative government majority, unthinkable at that time for the living forces of the PSOE.
The meeting of the party's highest decision-making body between congresses yesterday had, however, an intention diametrically opposite to that of eight years ago. The objective, now, is to try to prevent at all costs that Sánchez resigns as president, in the face of the "harassment and demolition operation" of the right against his wife, Begoña Gómez.
“They are not going to be able to break us,” began the president of the federal committee, Milagros Tolón. “Spain cannot go back, we have to move forward and continue pushing this country,” continued the deputy secretary general, María Jesús Montero, who insisted on transmitting a message to Sánchez: “We want you to continue being our president.” And she denounced the strategy of “insidiousness and hoaxes” of “a savage extreme right and a complicit and cowardly right.” “Yes, it is worth it for the good guys to win,” she stressed.
Montero also conveyed a message of support to the president's wife: “Begoña, colleague, we are all with you, all of us,” he supported, and the entire federal committee, standing up, burst into applause.
The round of interventions followed, among the twenty that were planned. The Basque Eneko Andueza urged Sánchez to hold on to win this battle, and referred both to the socialists who “perished in the gutters or suffered repression and exile,” and to those who “had to look under the cars and looked back.” to see our relatives because we didn't know if we were going to see them again,” during the hardest years of ETA.
The Catalan Salvador Illa, the next to appear at the polls on March 12, called for “raising a collective resistance.” And Teresa Ribera, head of the PSOE for the European elections, also spoke; Minister Óscar Puente; and the three socialist regional presidents: Adrián Barbón, María Chivite and Emiliano García-Page.
The latter, president of Castilla-La Mancha and the main critical voice of Sánchez among the territorial leaders, also conveyed his support. “A false complaint cannot bring down a president of the Government,” he warned. Page also showed his indignation with Carles Puigdemont, for “making fun” of Sánchez by warning that “he leaves home crying.” "And he says it who left home and Spain on the hood of a car!" He added.
The organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, then interrupted the conclave and the pending speaking hours, to everyone go out into the street to meet with the militancy. With a unanimous cry before the right: “They will not pass!”
