Iván Redondo: "Madrid DF doesn't care what happens in the rest of the State"

MadridIván Redondo (Sant Sebastià, 1981) has already become a legend of political communication in Spain. He was the power behind the scenes at Moncloa from 2018 to 2021 as chief of staff for Pedro Sánchez, and previously began in Badalona with Xavier García Albiol and in Extremadura with the government of José Antonio Monago. Five years after leaving the Spanish government, he explains why he left and the keys to winning elections in El manual (2026, Contraluz).

El manual is a very personal book, in which he explains where he comes from.

— Yes, I am a son of Azkuene street, in San Sebastián. It is the last street of San Sebastián before Pasaia, that is to say, I am a border dweller. I like miscegenation and I was born on April 14th: I am a republican who understands that there can be a plural monarchy and I have a plurinational idea of Spain.

With these ideas, what was your arrival like in what you now call Madrid DF?

— When I arrive there it's not Madrid DF, it's Madrid. I arrive the year of the tamayazo and the following year it's 11-M. In these twenty years, Madrid has been emancipating itself from many parts of Spain. It has become a strategic device, above and beyond the political, that doesn't care what happens in the rest of the State. A capital that is introducing the Ibero-American element, which seems positive to me, but then I don't understand why it cannot also be claimed as the capital of the different peoples of the State.

His figure stands out for having worked for different political colors, which is not usual in the State. Should the political message for which one works be minimally shared? I think of Albiol, for example.

— Xavier García Albiol gave me my first opportunity. He had a proposal and I advised him. He did not decide politically. As a good lawyer, you should not connect with the political proposal they put on the table.

Is there a manual to win?

— Yes, to be a free politician.

Is there any?

— It is difficult for them to be. No voter, and this is standard, wants to reform what they have too quickly. There must be a didactic approach, and this is what is missing in Spanish politics. That is to say, the fact that the government is supported by a transversal, plurinational, and peripheral majority requires a didactic approach. It is an idea of state.

This didactics has not been done.

— I believe that this idea of a state exists, they have to explain it. It is what explains that eight years ago the motion of no confidence was won. 90% of the Basque and Catalan deputies supported it.

Pedro Sánchez, however, when he claims the government's work these days in the face of the proliferation of judicial cases, does not mention the amnesty. Is the PSOE complexed? Is it afraid of the PP or of Madrid DF?

— Now the PSOE is in the pits, the car needs to be renewed. It still has a great driver, who is Pedro Sánchez, and there is a common thread, which is the motion of no confidence, pardons, and amnesty. In the end, a strong democracy is one that forgives. The first thing I did when I arrived at Moncloa was to speak with the chief of staff of the President of the Generalitat, Josep Rius. I told him that we had to build a bridge so that when he needed it, he could cross it, and I too. At that time there were no pardons or amnesty, but it was important to recover this attitude. Sánchez's government has given a lot to Catalonia, and it can continue to give it a lot. And when Puigdemont can return, the total reunion will be vigorous.

Does the break between Junts and the PSOE not imply that the plurinational majority has not borne fruit?

— It is difficult to reconnect as in the first months in the short term, because the municipal elections are also coming now and they have to be differentiated. In this term, the government should present social budgets, whether it has support or not, as they would be the presentation card of its policies. In 2019 we presented them, Esquerra rejected them and we went to elections.

What was your day-to-day like when you were at La Moncloa?

— So I was going at full speed. I got up at five in the morning. I monitored the press and published opinion. I had three TVs in the office and a real-time report on social conversation on social networks. The function of the chief of staff is to capture political information and transform it into knowledge for decision-making. Around 7:30 a.m., a first briefing with the president, and around 8 a.m., fifteen-minute meetings on national security, intelligence, economic and social policy... I had lunch with the team staff or with ministers. In the afternoon, I had meetings with civil society and reviewed the regional press. Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., I saw the president again and arrived home exhausted.

At some point you also have to tell the president that he is wrong.

— Yes, it is not peaceful. Nobody likes this situation. But with Pedro we have had a sacred relationship. We have always been able to talk, but it is a high-risk sport, because we are human beings and they are difficult conversations. My experience with Pedro Sánchez is that the best comes out of these conversations. And sometimes you are right and sometimes he is right, it is a mutual learning and it stays in private.

What is the most difficult conversation you've had?

— The president was very focused on the economic balance and I continued with the ideas of plurinationality... It also happened to me with the amnesty: I would have liked it to be in the last legislature, and if it had been done in a didactic way, I think the PSOE would have won the elections. And now we have to think if the majority can be reissued, which I think it can. At this moment, polls say that the right has 12 million votes, it does not have one more vote than Rajoy had in 2011, but the left needs to mobilize. Transmit positive emotions. What is wrong with Catalonia being able to express itself as a nation and with its language in Europe? If you listen to Madrid DF, Spain is uninational, and that is a lie.

In the book he reveals why he is leaving Moncloa. Why hasn't he explained it before?

— A hole in my heart was detected in September 2020. It was before going to the gym at the Moncloa bunker, where they do some tests on you. There I was already out mentally, I rethought everything. I didn't explain it because my mother asked me not to: she had lost a daughter and everything was stirred up for us. But five years later, and considering that the operation was a success, I decided to explain it naturally in the book. I left Moncloa being more idealistic than when I entered it, because politics has given me everything. Winning Moncloa saved my life.

If Sánchez proposes to you to return and face the 2027 elections, what will you tell him?

— First I would listen to him and think, and the heart would decide. Now I'm thinking about the Redondo group.

What do you say about the proliferation of alleged corruption cases? Is there a political operation against the government, as Óscar Puente says?

— The government needs more people like Óscar Puente. Spain is a full and strong democracy, but it needs to be reconquered every day. I'll stick with the separation of powers and I prefer not to look at the referee.