The revelation of the chief of staff that unites Albiol, Monago, Sánchez and Illa

MadridThe presentation of Iván Redondo's book could not be ordinary. If one thing has characterized this political consultant, who was Pedro Sánchez's chief of staff from 2018 to 2021, it is his ability to go off-script and to surprise. And the event he held to present El Manual (Contraluz, 2026) has not disappointed. "Madrid has attended the presentation," in the sense that those who were supposed to be there were at the Teatro de Bellas Artes; and it did not start where everyone expected it to start: with him and his book. Redondo did not want to be the headliner from the outset and ceded the spotlight to who he has revealed as the true minister of democracy: Magdalena Chércoles.

This historic Moncloa civil servant took the stage to explain her work for the first time in public after 45 years in the Spanish Government's Presidency team. Since she was 23, when she passed the civil service exams, she has seen them all come and go – presidents and chiefs of staff – and she waited for Iván Redondo to leave to retire. "I wanted to pay tribute to public servants," explained Redondo himself, now in conversation with journalist Susanna Griso, who was the first to open the doors of television to a young political consultant born in San Sebastián and who, this Monday, played a supporting role to present his first book in society. "Do you like impossible causes?" Griso provocatively asked.

Redondo's curriculum invites that question. He was in the kitchen to catapult Xavier García Albiol (PP) to the mayorship of Badalona; he was key for José Antonio Monago (PP), present at the Teatro de Bellas Artes, to govern Extremadura after many years of socialist hegemony; and he made the leap to the PSOE by betting on an outsider like Pedro Sánchez, who had been expelled from the secretary-generalship. And, above all, he is considered key in the 2018 motion of no confidence that brought him to Moncloa. He was also relevant in Salvador Illa's landing as a candidate for the Generalitat, the first time after the Procés that the PSC returned to the podium of Catalan politics.

Why did he leave?

The Manual is a political and personal story of this consultant, only 45 years old, who knows the power mechanisms in Moncloa. For this reason, the question that hangs over the event is why he is leaving Moncloa in 2021 with the government crisis that Sánchez is causing. After five years, Redondo reveals in the book that in December 2020 he underwent heart surgery, an intervention that made him rethink everything. "You have to know how to win, lose, and stop," he summarized, although it is no secret the suspicion that existed within the PSOE and Moncloa itself towards him: when the advisor's power is very evident, it always bothers those at the forefront.

However, he can always return. In fact, he has not refrained from commenting on current events –"Feijóo doesn't understand Madrid DF," he stated– and has warned those present that he "is strong" and ready if they call him to play. "I have a healthy heart and I am ready to return. At this moment in which Spain finds itself, I cannot answer in any other way." Susanna Griso could not get him to say more, but everything was understood.