Sánchez, disciple of Cela

Pedro Sánchez knows (because he's experienced it) that public opinion is as aggressive as it is pusillanimous: it can raise a storm and a storm, but it shrinks and changes direction when faced with those who don't let the commotion overwhelm them. It's the same with dogs: those that charge stop when faced with those who show no signs of being frightened. It's not about not being afraid, but rather about mastering it. Controlling emotions, combined with a tactical intelligence that allows him to make good, practical readings of the reality around him, has been the key to the Spanish prime minister's political career, which is why he doesn't figure in that one.Resistance Manual, which is always cited when discussing his apparent ability to survive adversity. The book was merely a marketing gimmick for the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), but it served its purpose: no one has ever read it, yet everyone cites it as if it helped explain something.

It is evident that Sánchez is going through the lowest hours of his career, along with the time when he was expelled from the general secretary of the party in a strange revolt of men with a demonstration in front of the Ferraz headquarters included. But there is a decisive difference: Sánchez lacked power then, and now he does. I don't know if Sánchez has read Camilo José Cela, a good writer and an unworthy character who made famous a motto: "whoever resists, wins." The anti-corruption measures he announced, and which You can read in the chronicle of this newspaper, are a way to save time.

Despite being Galician like Cela, Feijóo hasn't read anything and showed up empty-handed to the debate on corruption. The things he said and the proposals he made (strengthening the UCO, which is in his favor, and dismantling the Constitutional Court, which is against him) are not commensurate with the serious moment that, in his opinion, Spain is going through. Sánchez and the PSOE know that the judicial calendar that the PP has ahead of it is rich in scandals: the deaths from the DANA in the Valencian Community, the deaths in nursing homes in the Community of Madrid during the pandemic, the case of Alberto González Amador, the adventures of the patriotic police Or corruption classics that are still a long way from the courts—such as the Kitchen, Púnica, and Lezo cases—weaken the expectations of a PP that now pretends to be a champion against corruption. And proposals like the deportation of eight million people put on the table by Vox, the PP's only current interlocutor, don't exactly help them arm themselves with arguments.

The fact that corruption in Spain is a structural phenomenon that goes far beyond the struggle for power between the right-wing and left-wing blocs can be interpreted as a Francoist legacy. In this sense, the European Commission's report on the rule of law, which underscores the high risk of corruption in Spain in areas such as public works procurement and political party financing, is a forceful reminder that puts its finger on the wound now open to the PSOE by Cerdán, Ábalos, Aldama, Koldo, and company.