The trap motion that Feijóo wants to avoid
BarcelonaIt is completely unusual for a sitting prime minister to encourage the opposition to present a motion of no confidence, which is what Pedro Sánchez did this Monday. He added his votes to those of the PP and Vox. In fact, the motion would serve Sánchez as a second vote of confidence: it would make it clear that there is no alternative majority and could exhaust the legislature. Conservative electorate that does not understand why, having a corrupt and autocratic government as they are led to believe every day, everything possible is not being done to drive Sánchez away from La Moncloa. Once again, the Spanish prime minister manages to place himself in a position of win-win With this strategy: if the motion is presented, he wins, and if it isn't, he manages to weaken Feijóo's image. And most importantly, it shifts the focus onto the opposition, which is now the one that must try to explain why it isn't presented. Jaime Mayor Oreja once popularized the expression "truce-trap" when referring to ETA. Well, this would be, from the PP's point of view, a motion-trap.
Feijóo is now the victim of a strange clamp formed by Sánchez and Vox, who are demanding that he present the motion day in and day out. Santiago Abascal demonstrates his political acumen, always presenting himself as the one willing to go the extra mile to oust Sánchez. His is a discourse that people understand. On the other hand, Feijóo appears as the man who doesn't want to get his hands dirty, who intends to reach the Moncloa Palace without effort, simply going with the flow while others (the deep state and the corrupt PSOE) do his dirty work. And there's still a third agent who could work for him: Pablo Iglesias.
The Podemos factor
The great paradox of the legislature is that the weak link in the investiture majority is not Junts, as it might initially seem, but Podemos. Iglesias and Irene Montero are the only ones, outside the right, who aren't afraid of going to elections. What's more, they believe the time has come to kill Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz, whom they accuse of having hatched a plan to make them disappear with a single shot. For Podemos, a PP-Vox government with the PSOE mired in a serious identity crisis and Sumar disintegrating into a thousand pieces represents an unbeatable opportunity to return to their origins and aspire to replace the Socialists as the hegemonic leader of the Spanish left. Fine, this is the strategic justification, but everyone knows that the factor of personal animosity weighs heavily.
The problem is that in 2025 the situation is very different from that of 2015. Podemos is no longer the movement led by a group of brilliant young people who knew how to connect with the discontent caused by the economic crisis. Those young people have grown up today, they have fought among themselves and have worn down the governments. The mistake of not having foreseen the reduction of sentences for rapists in the law of only yes is yes (which they have yet to acknowledge) was already on the verge of derailing the plurinational majority and seriously tarnished their image. Whether they want to admit it is another matter. And everything seems to indicate otherwise. Victimhood is that virus that is both widespread in politics and lethal when it acts as a political guide. It applies to Pablo Iglesias in this case, but it could also apply to many others, for example, to Pedro Sánchez.
