Reasons and blame for the political bewilderment
MadridPedro Sánchez claims he has recovered from the crisis caused by the report from the Civil Guard's Central Operational Unit (UCO) on the illegal business dealings of his former organization secretary, Santos Cerdán, but the political atmosphere remains highly charged. To begin with, the Supreme Court has just upheld the provisional imprisonment of a man who had been a close confidant of the Prime Minister. The ruling issued by the Criminal Chamber speaks of the existence of "strong evidence" of Cerdán's "active role" in the scheme to collect commissions for the awarding of public works contracts. It should be remembered that this is someone who had been a prominent interlocutor with Junts, among other roles. The complex machinery of pacts in this legislature was bound to suffer from the discovery of this corruption case. The debate over the anti-blackout decree-law made this clear, demonstrating the fatigue and tensions that the evolution of this period, halfway through the legislature, is causing among the coalition partners of the PSOE and Sumar.
In any case, the defeat inflicted on Sánchez's executive is a grave error, especially on the part of the left, which collaborated in the rejection of the decree law. But above all, it is a detriment to the country. The only advantage is that it is a correctable mistake, because the proposal will go back to Congress, and there will be opportunities to rectify it. At other times, the strange coincidence between the parties of the No This decree-law couldn't be passed. The deterioration of the political climate due to corruption cases—among which the case of former PP Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro also occupies a very prominent place—has caused a kind of saturation and general disorientation comparable to that caused by physical impacts. It's as if the party leadership teams were getting out of a bus that has just crashed into a tree on a dangerous road, dazed. After the blows, it's hard to regain balance. And we're far from achieving it. Everyone is very nervous, too nervous. The Torre Pacheco crisis and the avalanche of hate messages it provoked demonstrated this. The specialized prosecutor's office fighting this criminal activity is analyzing more than one hundred thousand of them, an outrageous number. The existence of these texts is a very negative symptom for the upcoming elections.
Heavy digestion
In this context, the supposed August hiatus arrives, with the final parliamentary act of the aforementioned government defeat, just two years after the last elections. We already knew it wouldn't be easy, that the PP—having been the party with the most votes—wouldn't easily digest the continuation of its period of opposition, due to a lack of allies. But right now, the digestion is difficult across the board. Everyone has their reasons for feeling frustrated and intellectually fatigued. The PSOE is doing so because it realizes that what Sánchez said about his willingness to govern with or without Parliament isn't working. The parliamentary environment needs to be refreshed, and the way things are going, there's no opportunity in sight. Tacticism and electoral calculations permeate everything.
Podemos said at the beginning of the legislature that it was committed to governability. But it isn't. Every time Irene Montero or Ione Belarra speak, the weight of their recent past, when they held the executive branch, is felt. That is to say, it's perceived that they've also suffered from digestion problems. In this case, to assume the role of former ministers of Pedro Sánchez, whom they now call a "warlord" because he won't close relations with Israel and is willing to increase military spending, we'll see by what percentage. This confirms what we've known since the transition from Franco to democracy about the difficulty of stable agreements between the political forces of the left.
Adolfo Suárez was aware of this, and that's partly why he facilitated the legalization of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). There was a risk of opposition from military personnel nostalgic for the dictatorship, but the government had polls that gave the communists low electoral prospects. Felipe González also knew there wasn't much he could do with the United Left and Julio Anguita's PCE. Nor did it work for Joaquín Almunia, who proposed to Pacos Frutos to make "common cause" against the Popular Party, only to fail in the attempt. The one who took advantage of these factors was José María Aznar, whose photos of his walks through the Moncloa gardens with Anguita, when he was willing to appear forming the famous pincer movement with the PP leader, went down in history. And the other photo from that period was the one from the Azores Islands, when Spain did get involved in a war, the Iraq war, without any vote in Congress. Now, twenty years later, the forces on the left of the PSOE are more divided than ever.
Will the legislature end?
With the pro-independence forces, it should be possible to complete the term. Puigdemont has no other opportunity to return to Spain in freedom. This situation must be resolved before any rapprochement between Junts and the PP, a party that cannot reach government without the support of Vox. This factor is also insurmountable for the PNV. In this context, the constant warnings of ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, about the advisability of the left, including the pro-independence parties, seeking agreements are logical.
In no case do I imagine a joint candidacy in a general election. But the country's periphery will also play a significant role in the next election. the worse, the better It never works. The crisis surrounding the Cerdán case posed a huge risk. The coalition allies held on, partly out of a survival instinct. The Montoro case, on the other hand, has somewhat rebalanced the situation, forcing the Popular Party to take a decision with little precedent: to force the resignation of its deputy, Noelia Núñez, for falsifying the CV she submitted to Congress. But much more serious is the fact that a former Minister of Finance promoted legislative changes to favor energy sector companies that had allegedly paid to obtain these modifications. It's hard to believe that the loss of public funds will be recovered, no matter how much Pedro Sánchez might want it to. The government must limit itself to regulatory changes to prevent a similar situation from happening again.
