By land, sea and air: the PP's crusade to bring down Sánchez

Madrid"Continue to deepen the government's erosion". This is the PP's strategy in this final stretch of the legislature. Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party has deployed it over the past few weeks – marked by the judicial agenda surrounding the PSOE – activating the armed forces at their disposal against Pedro Sánchez while still resisting the step of presenting a motion of no confidence, as demanded by Vox. The popular party has used other parliamentary tools to highlight the "extreme weakness" of the Spanish executive's leader, has made use of a sympathetic media apparatus, and has once again resorted to the path of justice while the street mobilization, on the eve of summer, remains paralyzed.

The parliamentary offensive

Although with a symbolic and not real effect, the Popular Party has launched an offensive in Congress – which they have extended to the Senate, the chamber they dominate with an absolute majority and which has become one of their main armed branches – to try to demonstrate that Sánchez has run out of a parliamentary majority. The latest blow was last Thursday in Congress with the vote a motion that asks the Spanish president to resign or to submit to a confidence vote. It served the PP leader to proclaim that the president governs ignoring the decisions of the lower house, as he managed to get it approved with the votes of Vox and Junts.

Pedro Sánchez has already ruled out presenting a confidence vote, which is a parliamentary mechanism available to the government to measure the chamber's support. It is won by obtaining a simple majority, but if he were to lose it, he would be legally obliged to resign. Since the PSOE does not currently have guaranteed support, it has always ruled out submitting to this mechanism, which Junts has been demanding for a year following the breach of the Brussels agreement.

In fact, the initiative approved in Congress also continues a first attempt to vote on whether Sánchez should call early elections, but the board vetoed it with the votes of the PSOE and Sumar. In response, Carles Puigdemont's party already voted in favor of another PP motion, in which they noted the legislative deadlock.

The parliamentary episodes of recent days have served the PP to claim that there is a "distance" between the socialists and one of the investiture allies, without whom Sánchez will not be able to move forward with the General State Budgets for 2027, which he now wants to start negotiating.

Does this mean, however, that the PP is closer to presenting a motion of no confidence? Popular sources do not currently consider that Junts would agree to support a motion of no confidence and do not see room for the legislature to be brought down imminently. Meanwhile, the bet is to worsen Sánchez's "agony" until the Spanish elections.

The judicial path

Another tool that the PP uses is the judicial one with its appearance as a popular accusation in cases related to the PSOE. A strategy that provides them not only with access to real-time information about investigations but also the ability to influence the movements made by judges. Precisely in the case against José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the popular party has the legal direction of the popular accusations. From now on, with Judge José Luis Calama's decision to limit the parties' access to the documentation, will be the only popular accusation with direct access to the Cloud platform where they are uploaded.

In parallel, two weeks ago the PP also played the card of requesting protection from the Constitutional Court for the board's veto on voting on an early election in the chamber. From the Senate, the popular party has already raised more than a dozen conflicts of attribution with Congress and the Spanish government.

The use of Atresmedia ants

In line with this parliamentary route that seeks to weaken the image of the Spanish government, the PP intends to generate an effect of contrast between its state of mind and that of a PSOE affected by the alleged corruption cases that surround it.

Sources from the popular leadership explained two weeks ago why Feijóo would go that Wednesday, the same day Zapatero declared himself investigated at the National Court, to the Atresmedia entertainment program El Hormiguero. To project a more "carefree" and "serene" image in the face of socialist nervousness and to take the opportunity to insert the PP's discourse in prime time. In this interview, conducted by presenter Pablo Motos with a friendly approach towards Feijóo, the leader of the PP was able to speak for more than an hour, laying out his arguments with little room for humor despite the program's nature.