Sánchez now only has one ally left: time.

BarcelonaWhen the wounds are deep, there's only one thing that can help heal them: time. This is the only card Pedro Sánchez has left to try to overcome a crisis that, this time, looks definitive. But like a shipwrecked person clinging to a log in the middle of a storm, hoping that when the sun comes out, he'll have a beach in sight, Sánchez thinks he still has a chance—slim, yes, but not impossible.

This chance of salvation depends, above all, on avoiding scares like the Paco Salazar one again and on ensuring that the Cerdán case remains within its current scope. From then on, the only positive thing today is that the summer holidays will soon begin, and politics will enter a kind of timeout. A timeout for most citizens, but very valuable time for him, which he can use to prepare for his return in better conditions.

Two things are expected in the Moncloa: the first is that the tables will turn in the fall and sentences against the PP will begin to appear: in the Kitchen case, for example, or some pending Gürtel case. This is due to the PP's anxiety about coming to power. The longer Sánchez is in power, the more nervous the PP will be, and therefore, the greater the chances of them making mistakes.

The other weapon Sánchez has to play the game, even if it's a desperate one, is control of the Official State Gazette (BOE) and the ability to introduce issues onto the agenda. The Spanish prime minister sometimes plays around with opening several fronts at once to unnerve Feijóo. Regional financing could be one, although his favorite is international politics. Sánchez dreams of being able to go to the polls at a time when the debate is marked by a Donald Trump blunder that exposes Vox's dependence on the PP. The fear among left-wing voters of a right-wing rematch is, currently, Sánchez's best weapon. And time and the ability to play with them to call elections are his only ally.