Sánchez's latest masterstroke?

BarcelonaIf Pedro Sánchez stands out for anything, it is for his political instinct. With the polls on the ground and the conversation framework dominated by Ceuta and the PSOE corruption cases, the Moncloa had designed a plan that consisted of presenting a very expansive budget project this autumn that would allow him to generate many headlines and culminate in a vote at the end of the year in which the treacherous triple right (the PP, Vox, and Junts) would defeat them. This was the ideal framework to call them for February or March, since the elections could turn into a referendum on those social budgets, that is to say, on the country's model.

But lo and behold, three months earlier he has found a momentum that is much better. The doubt that perhaps gnaws at him is that to obtain a handful of more deputies, and surely not add up to enough, he has to renounce 3 or 4 months at the Moncloa and, therefore, all the levers of power (and self-protection) that this entails. However, he will hardly find a better scenario to try to recover. Furthermore, it would be relatively easy for him to keep the housing framework on the agenda. For example, he could approve the decree laws before dissolving the Cortes, and the permanent deputation, where the PP, Vox, and Junts do not add up to a majority, could validate them a few days before the start of the campaign.

In between, there will also have been the elections in Brazil, in which Lula da Silva could be re-elected against the son of Jair Bolsonaro, and the United States midterm elections, which may mark the beginning of the end of Trumpism. After years of victories by candidates like Trump himself, or like Javier Milei in Argentina, at the Moncloa they believe that the pendulum could begin to shift in another direction.

However, would that be enough to recover? It is very difficult. But for some time now, the PSOE has set a much more achievable goal, which is to finish ahead of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP. This would allow him, on the one hand, to dismantle Feijóo's discourse about the most-voted list and would put the Galician leader in a situation of extreme weakness in front of Santiago Abascal. And on the other, it would shield him as leader of the PSOE, to the point that he could consider continuing as head of the opposition and trying to regain power in four years' time. Here, the idea of shielding himself against the more than foreseeable judicial revenge being prepared by sectors of the right, who want to see him in prison, also weighs heavily. It is not so easy to imprison someone who has been the leader most voted for by the Spanish people.

In any case, Sánchez will do the impossible to gather a majority again. And, moreover, during campaigns, Alberto Núñez Feijóo is very prone to making mistakes and going too far. Pedro Sánchez's master move would be to present himself as someone whom the true powers of the State, in collusion with the Catalan right, have not let govern. Not as someone who has to answer for his work in government, but as someone who demands free rein in the face of a Feijóo who, predictably, will have his hands very tied.