Ábalos and the 'triperia' opposition
MadridIt will soon be two years since Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez surprised everyone by calling the last general elections early. It was May 29th, and the Socialist leader appeared to make an institutional statement in which he emphasized that he had made this decision in light of the results of the municipal and regional elections held the day before. On that occasion, the PP garnered 7,054,887 votes—31.53% of those cast—while the PSOE obtained 6,291,812—28.12%. The prime minister's reaction was immediate, seeking a comeback that would prevent further losses. Sánchez ran a very intense campaign and appeared in numerous interviews and television programs. Many other decisions followed from this setback.
In general, the Socialists sought to combine a closing of ranks—placing trusted individuals in key positions—with a renewal operation that would allow for the introduction of new profiles, especially among regional leaders. The PSOE wanted to strengthen the organization's structure to confront a PP increasingly determined to pursue a policy of permanent confrontation as the main opposition party. Furthermore, the standoff between Sánchez and Feijóo had already become a personal matter. Since then, the clashes they have had in Congress have been particularly bitter and have frequently been characterized by contempt and cross sarcasm. As the legislative period progressed, the political and sociological right has mobilized all available forces in a wide range of circles, including the economic, media, and judicial sectors. This development now places us, two years after the last general election campaign, in a situation where political relations, in general, and those between the Socialists and the People's Party in particular, are severely deteriorated, with virtually no room for dialogue.
This situation is already serious in terms of the country's domestic politics, but we are aggravated by a complicated international context, which calls into question fundamental aspects of European integration, not only in terms of security and defense policy. We are literally playing for our money, and something more, much more, depending on the course of the struggle to maintain—or increase—positions between the main protagonists in the fight for global hegemony. This May also marks the eighth anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany, which has already been shown not to represent the end of the wars in Europe.
Meanwhile, in Spain, the political debate moves along narrow paths, generating neologisms. In the sloppy jock has followed the concept of opposition of offal, for example. And among the news these days, a prominent place is occupied by the sequence of messages between the president of the Spanish government and the former Minister of Public Works, José Luis Ábalos, with a rich anecdote of allusions to third parties inside and outside the PSOE. Some of those mentioned appear with curious aliases and nicknames,bird" referring to the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who reacted in the only way possible: downplaying the incident, emphasizing that it was a "private conversation." The problem for the Socialists is not the existence of a specific series of messages that are more or less compromising or reveal politically dangerous behavior, but rather the number of episodes that have accumulated. These latest episodes make it easier for the opposition to complete the profile of an alleged network of complicity that allows them to mix everything, from the Ábalos case to the alleged intervention of the president's wife, Begoña Gómez, to favor specific business interests, such as those arising from the Air Europa crisis. the new investigative proceedings agreed upon by the instructor, after the Madrid Court ordered, a year ago, the judge to put aside his investigations
Turning hypotheses into evidence.
The issue is that now a second warrant has been issued in the same direction, even though the Civil Guard's Central Operational Unit (UCO) had already reported in two reports that it had found no trace of Begoña Gómez's actions in the Air Europa rescue operation. For the prosecution, the important thing is to establish that Sánchez addressed this matter after the airline's CEO contacted the Prime Minister's wife to ask for her help. But the problem for the popular action entities is proving the alleged influence peddling by turning hypotheses and clues into evidence, given that the presumption of innocence remains a constitutional right for all.
In this climate, where the vicissitudes of judicial proceedings have such an influence on political parties' strategy, the call for the next PP congress has arrived. Feijóo has decided to do so to prepare the organization for a hypothetical early election. The PP president has everything at stake in the next general elections. Vox is still a major obstacle for him. It was significant that the leader of this party, Santiago Abascal, at the end of his speech in the plenary session of Congress on the blackout and the increase in spending on security and defense, dedicated himself to demanding that Feijóo not make any further agreements with the PSOE.
The truth is that the PP has not agreed anything on this issue with the government despite the initial attempt at dialogue. And it was also significant that the PP did not join the call for the latest anti-Sanchista rally in Madrid's Plaza de Colón, organized by Vox. Feijóo, in short, is seeking his path for the two years he may have left in the legislature, with a strategy of controlling government action without concessions, but which should contribute something more than what the Socialists describe as an opposition of offalThe messages between Sánchez and Ábalos allow us to get closer to what the Prime Minister thought about some of his collaborators and former allies in 2021 or 2023, but they are the ultimate weapon the PP has been waiting for for some time.
