1. Negligence. President Sánchez says, in response to Santos Cerdán's pretrial detention: "The PSOE has acted decisively from the very beginning." The person Sánchez entrusted with the renewal of the PSOE, convinced it was the best way to put his house in order and for other ingenious tasks such as his relationship with President Puigdemont, had been up to his old tricks for years, apparently without the president suspecting anything. Meanwhile, the figure's prominence only grew, stirring the pot.
The "conclusive" reaction against Santos Cerdán has certainly been belated. A figure about whom so many things are becoming known in the area of corruption and abuse of power did and undid in the shadows without either the party, the government apparatus, or the president himself ever suspecting anything? It's disturbing. In the many hours of conversation they must have had, did he never notice this sexist shamelessness, this way of viewing women as objects at his disposal, the main theme of the miserable recorded conversations? The vast majority of reactions from both right and left: even if it were true that he knew nothing, Pedro Sánchez should resign and call elections, a demand cloaked in political morality. Everyone: it legitimizes itself as a moral gesture and avoids entering into more complex registers. 2. Persistence. And yet, for now—and I hope it lasts the time between writing and publishing that article—Pedro Sánchez is doing the opposite. He's not leaving. Rutte, NATO Secretary General, is handing the European Union over to Trump's comings and goings without any resistance; Sánchez is the only one who dares to stand up to him. Against feminism, against integration and social assistance policies, and against national plurality—he's making headway, consciously nurturing a doubt: is he leaving—how could that be perfectly coherent, given the huge confusion that has him trapped—or is he continuing to look to the future? The eve of a change, and it's only a matter of timing. The PP is doing it because of the noise. Ideas are in the drawer; alternation—there has usually been a well-crafted political project on the launch pad (and that's how González and Aznar arrived in their time). The electorate—the one that decides the alternations—could reconsider. Sánchez's persistence is not trivial.
