Sánchez, resisting the regression

1. The weekend We have been given a priceless episode, born from the heart of Spain. The president of the Episcopal Conference, Luis Argüello, Archbishop of Valladolid, has demanded that President Sánchez choose one of these three options: "a vote of confidence, a motion of no confidence, or giving the people a voice." The Church telling the president of a secular democracy what to do—a smokescreen with a touch of nostalgia for the old Spain under the tutelage of the Catholic Church, which seems to struggle to understand that its power is not what it once was.

Sánchez's resistance is throwing the right wing into disarray: if the president still has the capacity to stand up to him, it is largely due to the incompetence of the PP and its allies. Against Sánchez, they have mounted a farcical opposition, trying to dig into corruption, a territory in which the right wing has little to offer, and they have been incapable of developing a coherent project that would truly make them an attractive alternative. The reality is that Sánchez is taking action, while the right wing is just bellowing. And they don't know how to hide how interminable the wait feels. Having the Church tell Sánchez what to do doesn't seem like the best solution in a society that is increasingly secular and longs for the days when Catholicism ideologically clothed the Franco regime. And evidently, Sánchez only had to remind everyone that in a democracy, religion doesn't set the pace.

If this ecclesiastical outburst has served any purpose, it has been precisely to allow Sánchez to unequivocally confirm his intention to complete his term on Monday. There he is, in his place. And he won't be the one to take the steps to avoid his work in the opposition, which doesn't dare to push for a vote of confidence because the numbers don't add up. Patience, and the better he manages it, the better he will succeed. The PP is paying the price for a failed strategy that has led to the unstoppable growth of Vox and, therefore, to the impossibility of accelerating its own rise without falling into the hands of the far right. And Sánchez will play his cards right until the end.

2. It does not bring joy, The scenario. It's surprising and difficult to understand why it's so hard to control corruption and abuses of power. Sánchez is surrounded. From Ábalos to Santos Cerdán, his collaborators, to whom he had entrusted especially delicate missions, have fallen into the abyss of corruption. And at the same time, every day another case of sexual assault and abuse within the Socialist Party's sphere of power makes the news. The presumption of innocence leads us to believe, until there is proof, that Sánchez was unaware. But this doesn't absolve him of responsibility: not having control of the house is a constant risk. It's truly alarming that political power lacks sufficient instruments to prevent crimes and atrocities from being committed with complete impunity within the halls of power.

The situation is serious and would require some collective reflection, which won't happen because political parties are incapable of prioritizing the general interest over their own particular interests. Sooner or later, justice will prevail, with the added complication that the conservative bias of the courts is evident, as the case of the Attorney General has shown. And we all know that justice is often slow in coming. Máriam Martínez Bascuñán is right to point out the consequences of "maintaining the appearance of normality without transforming the power structures." This is what perpetuates problems.

3. The right He will continue to press forward. The PP's dependence on Vox limits its options. And it prevents Sánchez from feeling directly threatened. It allows him to display his resilience, as he did on Monday, explaining his plans for the two years remaining in his term, trying to give the public reasons to wait. Everything is very precarious. But right now, Sánchez's resilience—increasingly embodied by him from Moncloa Palace, as if the party were a distant memory—lies primarily in the confusion of the rest of the country. Making the general left-leaning public believe that it's either him or much worse is relatively easy. And given the current state of his rivals in this moment of reactionary regression, he still has the advantage of representing one of the few governments that hasn't fallen into the hands of the far right. Right now, Spain is a European exception where social democracy still holds out.