To his many reasons for concern, Pedro Sánchez can add another: the Palma City Council has just declared him persona non grata in the city. It has been done by the governing majority, made up of the PP and Vox, and at the initiative –of course– of Abascal's party.
The Palma episode is grotesque, like almost everything we hear about the agreement between the two Spanish nationalist right-wing parties at the helm of the island's institutions. But the fact that it's laughable doesn't mean it's not significant. That the capital of one of the regions with the most pronounced fiscal deficit in all of Spain dedicates its efforts to such absurd posturing is representative of the mood that this right wing has managed to generate around the figure of the current Spanish Prime Minister. A level of criminalization, demonization, and dehumanization that until now had been reserved for the traditional enemies of the Spanish nation: leaders of Catalan and Basque nationalism or separatism, and occasionally a leader of the Spanish left. In this current fragile democratic era, it is the first time that the violent irrationality of Spanish ultranationalism has been directed against a Spanish president. Zapatero already received hatred in his time, but the process of decay surrounding Sánchez's image (and all those who fall into the trap) has reached new heights. Sanchismo(from their relatives to the state attorney general) is another story.
The string of scandals within the PSOE, particularly the sexual harassment scandals perpetrated by sexist leaders, are like sulfuric acid for Sánchez's credibility and for the patience—often the only thing left to cling to—of the public and the undecided electorate. Even so, unless the moment arrives when he is definitively cornered, Sánchez hasn't lost sight of the fact that he is the only one who can call elections, and he will try to postpone doing so until the end of his term—as he has announced so many times—or at least as soon as possible. By acting this way, he has something to gain. Time, for starters, for the legal cases against the PP (the party that continues to lead, by a wide margin, the corruption rankings: a few days ago, Verificado quantified that the PP alone is responsible for 40% of the corruption cases brought to court in Spain, amounting to 3.062 billion euros). And time for Europe to give the final green light to the amnesty so it can be implemented, or at least attempted to be implemented—something that would be a game-changer for the legislature. But also, and perhaps this isn't expected of a prime minister, there's a personal element to it all. The playbook for resistance says that the far right, or its ilk, shouldn't be allowed to do what they did to Lula in Brazil (imprison him) or to Costa in Portugal (force him to resign amidst a storm where real scandals were intertwined with slander and lies). For now, with the holidays comes the parliamentary recess until February.
