Santos Cerdán's warning to the PSOE: "Organizations fall when they believe the blow will not arrive"

Madrid“Fifteen days earlier I was sitting at a table where decisions affecting an entire country were being made. Fifteen days later, I was alone, in nine square meters, trying to understand how I had gotten there”. When it has been exactly one year since he entered prison, Santos Cerdán has published La caída. Poder, relato y destrucción en la era del juicio político, the book in which he breaks his silence. Throughout 164 self-published pages, he recounts his experiences during the almost five months he was in Soto del Real, explains how he lived the days that led to his downfall, and offers a long philosophical dissertation on Justice and the media. He complains, for example, that public opinion is a “permanent tribunal without guarantees” that has imposed on him an “anticipated social condemnation” and attributes the investigation into him to “something that was not seeking the truth”.

The former number 3 of the PSOE revolves everything around the "narrative", a word that appears 60 times throughout the book. And it is that, at all times, he presents his indictment as an exogenous, unexpected and alien fact to him: he believes it was a "story that was written" and that it was the "culmination of something that had been brewing for a long time". "When the climate is prepared, facts are ordered within a previous narrative", says Santos Cerdán. "It is not debated what happened, but how what happened fits into the story that is already constructed", he adds later.

Another concept that appears with recurrence is “crisis”, a word that is repeated on 75 occasions. His thesis is to reduce his judicial case to a “reputational and judicial crisis of high intensity” for which neither he nor the PSOE – without mentioning him – were prepared and which they were not capable of anticipating and suffocating. “The signs existed and we did not know how to interpret them,” he laments. In fact, he goes so far as to recommend tools to “prevent the immediate isolation of those who become the focus of attack”. Like him. “Our institutions are not prepared to protect those who serve them when a crisis of this magnitude is unleashed,” he adds in a subtle language and without directly attacking the PSOE.

However, he takes the opportunity to send a warning for the future: “Organizations do not fall solely because of the mistakes they make. They fall because of the risks they don't see coming, they fall when they believe the blow will not arrive and they fall when they are not prepared to resist it.” And he alleges that the “most costly mistake” is to prefer the “defensive narrative” to “sincere self-criticism.” He is indeed clear and direct when, hurt by the party, he criticizes that the PSOE left him unprotected: “At the most delicate moment of my life and in a matter of hours, I was left without legal coverage, without political support, without resources. Abandoned and stunned.” “When the machinery is activated, those who should support you or at least think about the presumption of innocence, step aside,” he insists.

The cases against him

Santos Cerdán also explains how he reacted when, from the rostrum, he began to read the Civil Guard's report that led to his downfall: “What I’m reading makes no sense. Interpretations without basis, statements I don’t recognize and, above all, audios that are not my conversations”. When the plenary session ended, he went to his office in Ferraz street and decided to step down: “Not because I recognize what it says, but because I understand what is coming. Nobody asked for my resignation, it was my own decision, convinced that it was my duty”. He makes few direct references to the case of alleged irregularities in public works tenders. On the other hand, he makes no allusion to Leire Díez. The Civil Guard believes that he led the alleged network that was maneuvering to torpedo judicial cases.

Although he does not enter into refuting or denying the accusations against him, he defends at all times that he is innocent – he cites the "presumption of innocence" ten times – and presents himself as a victim of a “media lynching”. He also protests because people act as if they don't hear his explanations: “Whatever I said, the outcome did not change. What is decisive is not what happened, but what the majority believes happened”.

“The architect of impossible majorities”

Santos Cerdán also dedicates some pages to talking about his crucial role in enabling the last two legislatures. He defines himself as "the architect of impossible majorities" and presents himself as the one in charge of "turning the improbable into possible." The former number 3 of the PSOE acknowledges that Pedro Sánchez's election after 23-J was the "most difficult investiture in democracy" because it was necessary to "win the trust" of Junts. Of course, he takes the opportunity to boast about his intervention: "While I was in Congress, these balances, not without suffering, were moving forward.

He also recounts that the Spanish president had a "strategic vision" to commission him months before the elections to open a "dialogue channel" with the Junts members: "We could not remain without interlocution," Cerdán recalls. He asked the PNB to "do him the favor" of putting him in touch with Junts, and the jeltzales organized a meeting in Bilbao where he met Jordi Turull. From there, they began to meet with "absolute discretion" for months until they managed to "create a space where negotiation was possible" and which was decisive in enabling the subsequent investiture. Furthermore, just as he did in the Senate six months ago, he links the case against him to his role as an interlocutor: "This image [with Carles Puigdemont] was interpreted in many ways. For some, an agreement. For others, a line crossed. For me, the beginning of everything that would come next".