The first life of Pedro Sánchez as a political leader began on July 13, 2014. With the support of the powerful Andalusian federation of the PSOE, he prevailed in the party's open primaries and arrived at the general secretaryship replacing a historic figure like Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. Apparently, he was supposed to be Susana Díaz's straw man. Twelve years later, she is a senator and talk show panelist and Sánchez refuses to leave the Moncloa, already as the second longest-serving president of Spanish democracy. Resilient like few others, Sánchez has been exceeding expectations every time it seemed his star had stopped shining. Along the way, however, he has accumulated significant scratches that have forced him to be reborn at least six times. So many that it is likely he has run out of a safety net to face the November 29 elections. The seventh – and last? – life of Pedro Sánchez is officially put to the test starting this Friday with the beginning of the electoral campaign.

It has been a year since Carlos Mazón last spoke at the Valencian Courts. He did so for the last time a few days after his resignation as president to explain himself, "at his own request," before the commission of inquiry opened due to the DANA, which caused 237 deaths in October 2024. Since then, he has basically dedicated himself to voting on the scheduled days (the PSPV claims that he has only attended the Courts nineteen times in one year) and continuing to collect his deputy's salary with added bonuses for exclusive dedication, travel allowances (even though he has an official car for being an ex-president), and serving as the PP spokesperson in a commission, the regulation committee, which has not met even once in the entire legislative term. It amounts to more than 60,000 euros, which also carry judicial immunity, preventing the judge investigating the negligence during the DANA from investigating him.

That the search tasks be accelerated, that the necessary operators be assigned to do so, and that work be carried out uninterruptedly, including at night. These are the three requests made by the judge investigating the Urda railway tragedy to the crane company contracted by Adif-Renfe, given the "urgent need" to locate all possible remains that might still be found at the site where the wrecked trains are located. The area of the accident, where at least 69 people have died, continues to be inspected with the goal of being able to hand them over to the victims' families as soon as possible.

The Minister of Transport spent two hours this noon answering technical questions about Wednesday's tragic train accident in Toledo which, for the moment, has left 69 people dead. Óscar Puente has guaranteed that he is only obsessed with resolving the crisis, that he has not thought for a moment about the general elections on November 29, and that he has no intention of resigning. "My way of being responsible is by facing the music," he stressed. Sources close to the minister explain that he has placed his position at the disposal of Pedro Sánchez and that the Spanish president has asked him to stay because it would be an "unfair" resignation. Immersed in the electoral context, Puente's figure could harm socialist options, and the same sources admit that he will hardly be a visible face in the campaign.

Two railway accidents in Spain in the same year that add up to more than 100 deaths are "unacceptable". The assessment was made this Wednesday by the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, after the tragedy in Toledo. Under normal circumstances, an "unacceptable" event should lead to significant decisions. And, just as it happened after the Adamuz accident, all eyes are once again focused on the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, who for the time being has no intention of resigning. "I am not thinking about myself," he explained this Wednesday to guarantee that he is fully focused on "clarifying the facts and trying to resolve the situation." How will he get out of this one?

Lluís Puig (Terrassa, 1959) has spent nine years in exile for having been part of the October 1st Government as Minister of Culture. This week he has returned home.

As happened three years ago, the right-wing bloc starts with an advantage in the general election race. There is approximately one month left until the elections, and the average for the PP and Vox is situated above 190 seats, comfortably above the 176 that mark an absolute majority: demoscopy predicts a slight fall for the Popular Party, theoretically compensated by the rise of the extreme right. But as also happened in 2023, as the election day approaches, the distance pointed out by the demographic studies is narrowing. Campaigns suit Pedro Sánchez better than Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Do the left—and its sovereignist partners—have room to turn the results around?

Ada Colau already has someone to accompany her on her adventure in Madrid. The Comuns have validated the lists for the general elections, which hid a last-minute surprise: Aina Vidal, the current deputy spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, has been excluded. This Wednesday's national council was not exactly smooth sailing, with several voices dissenting from this decision, which also provoked a significant protest vote. The lists for the four Catalan constituencies were approved with 66% of votes in favor, but with 34% against and 20 blank votes. Vidal was the head of the Comuns list in the 2023 elections.

"The press may not be very successful in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about." The phrase, pronounced by political scientist Bernard Cohen in the sixties, admits many nuances adapted to the current world, in which the media no longer monopolize what is known as agenda-setting (basically, the determination of which topics are most relevant). And during the last few days, in political and journalistic circles, there was talk of nothing else but the 30 rental apartments with which the partner of the PSOE spokesperson does business.

Gabriel Rufián, number 1; Mireia Ingla, number 2; Jordi Albert, number 3, and Laura Pelay, number 4. These are, for the moment, the candidates that ERC has announced for the Barcelona constituency. To complete the list for the demarcation, the numbers will reach up to 32 (plus the substitutes), and it has not yet been made public what position the person designated by Podem will occupy. But who will it be? According to sources consulted by ARA, one of the names that the purple party had put on the table was that of the journalist Cristina Fallarás, a Catalan born in Zaragoza and a resident of Madrid. But it will not be her who finally becomes part of the republican candidacy. Podem, in fact, avoids publicly advancing any name, but assures that it will come from the open primary process that it started this Wednesday and that will close this Thursday. The name will specifically come from the people who have presented themselves in the Barcelona demarcation.

On November 29th there will be no Aliança Catalana ballot at the polling stations and there is a good number of potential voters for the party presided over by Sílvia Orriols who will look for alternatives. Who benefits most from this situation? For some time now, surveys have been drawing a scenario in which there are two parties that stand out as option B for citizens who, when the time comes for the Catalan elections, are clear that they will choose Aliança. Almost 4 out of every 10 of these voters will opt for either Vox (18.5%) or Junts (18%), according to the latest barometer from the Centre for Opinion Studies (CEO), published this Wednesday.

There is probably no historical reference further removed from what the Spanish left claims to represent than Louis XIV. The Sun King, the grandfather of Philip V, is the primary icon of absolutism, centralism, and a lack of respect for minorities. His power in France – and beyond – became so great that, to define it, a phrase is attributed to him that he probably never said: "The State is me".

The alliance between Gabriel Rufián and Podemos "is a front open to anyone who wants it," explain sources from the environment of the ERC spokesperson in Madrid. Translated, this means that if Ada Colau and her Broad Front want to join –paying the price demanded of them–, the door is open for them or, even more clearly, that if they run in a different candidacy it will be because they wanted it that way. Obviously, it is not as simple as that, but in the battle for the narrative, the signing of Rufián by Podemos makes it easier for this to be the interpretation when the moment of truth arrives.

Not only is it prepared for the elections, but Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP has been calling for them for at least a year. Vox even symbolically opened the electoral pre-campaign a few weeks ago in Catalonia, with Santiago Abascal as the undisputed leader of the candidacy. The right-wing parties are eager for the polls —despite the strategic warning that the Spanish government could try to manipulate them— because they are convinced that, this time yes, the doors of the Moncloa will open for them. On the left, however, there is a vacant lot with everything to be done in a rush.

"For my birthday I want a Bad Bunny figure, an Anuel AA one, or one of Gabriel Rufián". The girl asking for it won't be able to vote on November 29th (for any of the three), because she is only thirteen years old, but at her high school she doesn't need to give many details for her 2nd year ESO classmates to know who she is talking about. Two world music stars and a politician, the one who has the most appeal among young people (and not so young). Although he began his political career in 2015, Rufián is experiencing a second youth in Madrid. Having become the preferred leader for left-wing voters (only Pedro Sánchez overshadows him) and the best-rated in polls (in Spain and in Catalonia), he is currently the most coveted candidate: for ERC, for the Broad Front, and for Podemos. The vote-mobilizing potential of his speech is not disputed by anyone, but, consolidated as a free spirit, the tensions within his party have been growing to the point of becoming a big enough problem that his continuity has been called into question.

Everyone to the polls. Pedro Sánchez has put an end to the rumors by announcing the end of a legislative term that will be high-stakes until the very last moment. His government had long since lost the majority to approve relevant projects, and the Moncloa was holding out, waiting for the ideal moment to challenge the right-wing parties, the clear favorites to govern from now on. In the PSOE, they believe the moment has arrived with the housing crisis and that they are prepared to face the elections with guarantees. How are the parties arriving at this call to the polls?

The last time he took a few days to reflect, Pedro Sánchez returned with "more strength", ready to "put a stop to the politics of shame". During those five days in April 2024 –in the middle of the election campaign in Catalonia–, everyone was pending his decision, which at the time had to do with the attacks his wife received, today about to be tried for embezzlement and influence peddling. Now things are slightly different: no one expects him to step aside, but everyone is waiting for him to make a decision. Will there be elections before the end of the year? At the PSOE they are prepared and with each passing day the voices pointing out that the legislature has ended are growing.

It seems that Pablo Bustinduy (Madrid, 1983) is unaffected by siren songs. He has received many since he took the floor on Friday at the Congress of Deputies to defend the second of the housing decrees, the one most similar to the proposals of the Tenants' Union. These songs tell him to lead the candidacy of the Broad Front, the brand with which the heirs of Sumar are working for the elections. But the Minister of Social Rights discarded wearing that hat a long time ago. "I don't believe that is the role I should assume," he said in March. And the fact is that Friday's was not his only viral speech, due to its forcefulness and originality.

The Spanish legislature is running out and the left is not prepared. Whether in the summer, when four years will have passed since the last elections, or at the end of November in case Pedro Sánchez presses the electoral button this Monday, Comuns, Sumar, IU and Més Madrid have not yet defined the structure or the candidate. The failure of the housing decrees has shaken the political board and this Saturday Ada Colau activated the electoral mode with an urgent call. "It is the moment for great alliances. The citizenry would not understand if everyone went their own way," she exclaimed at the inauguration of a conference of the School of Political Imagination organized by the Sentit Comú Foundation, which is presided over by Colau herself.

The debate surrounding the two housing decrees that were voted on this Friday in the Congress of Deputies has left some parties so disoriented that in recent days, rumors of an imminent electoral call in the State have multiplied in parliamentary circles. For the second time in recent years, Pedro Sánchez has initiated a period of reflection, now to decide if the time has come to call early elections. Several sources connected to the Moncloa and consulted by the ARA acknowledge that it is a scenario that is on the table. The first available Sunday would be November 29.