Pedro Sánchez saves the umpteenth match-up in Congress
What in the morning seemed like it would be a via crucis for the PSOE has ended up being, after several twists of the script, a new parliamentary victory for Pedro Sánchez, who once again demonstrates that he is a true specialist in political survival in the most difficult conditions. In this case, the novelty is that the party that saved Sánchez was neither ERC nor Junts, but Podemos, which had threatened to overturn both the arms embargo on Israel and the mobility law. Finally, it voted in favor of the arms embargo and abstained on the mobility law, and Sánchez was able to save the match ball.
What is striking is the case of the mobility law, on whose approval a package of European funds worth 10 billion euros depended. Just when it seemed that Podemos had opted for one cold and one hot, that is, saving one bill to shoot down the second, it has emerged that a PP deputy was in Mexico on a honeymoon and unable to vote. The devilish parliamentary arithmetic then facilitated a victory for Sánchez and his partners by just one vote, considering that Podemos was aligned with the PP and Vox. Podemos then decided to change its mind and abstain in exchange for a commitment on El Prat airport that, according to the Spanish government, represents no practical change. The expansion will still be carried out on schedule.
In any case, Wednesday's session in Congress highlights two things. On the one hand, the fragility of the Sánchez government and the difficulty it faces every time it attempts to approve a legal initiative. And on the other hand, there's the difficulty that groups like Podemos and Junts, which threaten day in and day out to overthrow Sánchez, have in implementing a real and sustained policy of saying no to everything, which is the only thing that would truly jeopardize the continuity of the executive. This is because the PSOE is skilled enough to present initiatives that, if defeated, would entail a high cost for both Podemos and Junts.
The case of the arms embargo on Israel is paradigmatic. How could we justify to his electorate the rejection of this initiative as insufficient, when Pedro Sánchez is one of the international leaders who has shown himself most committed to the situation in Gaza and one of the most critical of Benjamin Netanyahu? Podemos has experienced a similar situation to that of Junts when it rejected a bill that included pension increases or transport subsidies.
This is the way Pedro Sánchez has found to survive politically in Congress: presenting initiatives that have broad social consensus or that represent economic gains for some sector. In fact, with this strategy, he even manages to wear down the PP, which is often forced to vote against social measures that affect its own voters. As if that weren't enough, the day was capped off by the government crisis in Andalusia over the breast cancer screening scandal, something that further soured Alberto Núñez Feijóo's day.
