Junts would be willing to invest a socialist president after November 29th, provided that the PSOE meets the demands of Carles Puigdemont's party, and the candidate for president is not Pedro Sánchez. The Junts candidate for the Spanish elections, Miriam Nogueras, set the party's position this Tuesday for the investiture of the future president of the state government and clarified what was meant bythe party would not invest either Pedro Sánchez or Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the top leaders had expressed in recent days. Junts will not remain on the sidelines of the State's governability; quite the contrary, as Nogueras and her running mates have championed the "useful policy" that they have developed in the Spanish Cortes this term. In fact, the members of Junts want to be decisive again after November 29th.

There is hope against Trumpism and the global far-right. An 80-year-old man, who will turn 81 this Tuesday, has proven it against all odds. The victory, this Sunday, in Brazil's presidential election for Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has been received by global social democracy and also by liberal democrats as a red-hot iron to hold onto in the face of the ultra-conservative push radiating from the White House, the MAGA movement, and the social networks at its service.

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?

In football, playing on the attack is what wins and what we like. But in politics, it is the other way around. What earns you points is defense, because attacking is unsympathetic. Pedro Sánchez on public television defended himself against the word perro (what a gift the right has given him, my God) as groups with bad press have defended themselves (taking the word and turning it around with pride). It is called linguistic reappropriation. In Catalonia, the most-watched television program is called Polònia, in reference to the word polacos. We all know that queer used to mean, disparagingly, weirdo but is now used with pride, and the same happens with the term dyke.

Pedro Sánchez visited this ThursdayLa revuelta by David Broncano in an interview lasting more than an hour, with a joking and relaxed tone, but also with criticism and pointed questions. One of the hottest topics was housing and, when asked about the socialists' measures on this matter, the president cited the 2023 Housing Law, which gives autonomous communities tools to regulate rent caps. However, the regional governments led by PP and Vox have refused to apply it and, to highlight the alleged grievance with those that have done so, Sánchez said that "in Catalonia the increase in rent prices is clearly lower than that of the Community of Madrid". But is that really the case?

After 9 years of exile, deputy Lluís Puig was able to return yesterday to sit in his seat at the Parliament. His emotion contrasted with the coldness with which he was received by the socialist group, at the head of which President Illa was not present, perhaps because it is one thing to have converted to the faith of the amnesty when his friend Pedro Sánchez has needed Junts to be invested as president and another to appear alongside someone who has not been to prison and who for nine years has been characterized as a “fugitive” (in reality, not a fugitive at all, because the exiles have always been, from the first day, at the disposal of the Belgian justice system (or German or Italian in the case of Puigdemont).

Pedro Sánchez aspires to an absolute majority and David Broncano wants to vocalize better. These are the two great desires expressed by the protagonists of La revuelta. It is difficult to say which of the two has it more complicated. Sánchez appeared with a Texan look, which is the new corduroy for left-wing politicians. Broncano sarcastically placed a Spanish flag pin on his lapel “so they can see that this is serious”. And in essence, the hour and a half interview had a more serious undertone than it appeared at first glance.

The PP and Vox have designed a campaign whose main objective is to prevent the left from mobilizing. It is for this reason that their candidates, Alberto Núñez Feijóo (PP) and Santiago Abascal (Vox), avoided an uncomfortable photograph this Wednesday with the Argentine president, Javier Milei, a character known for his buffoonery and insults towards what he calls leftists (zurdos, in Spanish). The strategy, however, did not work out very well for them. First, because the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, skipped the veto and did indeed meet with Milei and took a photo with him. And second, because a kind of Streisand effect also occurred, that is to say, there was more talk about their interest in not coinciding with him than about the visit itself.

Housing –the reason why the general elections in the State have been brought forward– is entering fully into the electoral pre-campaign of November 29th. This Monday it did so when the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced a sum of 45 million euros to expand the supply of university residence places throughout the State and promote affordable accommodation aimed at them. The goal is to try to give a breather to university students who have to do everything possible to, often unsuccessfully, find an apartment. Of this sum, 2.9 million euros will go to Catalonia, specifically for a project that the Lleida City Council is promoting, as detailed by the Ministry of Housing. In a first phase, still without a calendar, it is expected to mobilize 2,000 places.

The other day Feijóo announced that he would build a million apartments thanks to the fact that, with a government of his, there would be “less bureaucracy”, but instead of less bureaucracy, he said “less democracy”. He often does not know how to interpret what he is reading. The other day he said that he would only address the hardworking people and not the freeloaders, and when saying “freeloaders” (“scammers”) he did this. These slips make him meme fodder, and deepen the evidence that the personality of the favorite candidate in the polls to preside over Spain does not measure up, but not because he is often wrong, but because he is a politician from a past era.

The right to a widow's pension is being extended to those couples who live together and have children, but are not married or have not registered as a de facto couple. This is a family unit that often goes unnoticed because there is no official data, but which has grown over time (it is known, for example, that far fewer marriages are taking place) and in parallel to the transformation that the family has experienced—and is experiencing—in Spain. This Tuesday, the Spanish government approved a decree-law that plans to extend this right to these families: if there are children in common, the requirement to present formal registration of the de facto partnership is eliminated. From now on, the existence of children in common and proof of cohabitation will be sufficient, explained sources from the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.

The week begins marked by the landscape after the battle this weekend in France.

"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.

1. The elections scheduled for next November 29th are not the consequence of a specific event (the express housing decrees) but rather of an unviable government at least since the events in Ceuta at the end of July, which to this day have still not been resolved. If Junts and the PNV had supported laws that, on the other hand, can be applied provisionally, the parliamentary precariousness would be the same. In this sense, whether the elections were on November 29th or in a few months, in the year 2027, when they were due, is irrelevant. The dramatization of the early call, as well as its overacted political interpretation, is part of a legitimate electoral strategy. In any case, it is just that: an electoral strategy that theoretically favors the PSOE and the parties that provide it with parliamentary support. For the moment, no poll suggests that this expectation equates to a victory.

Insults against Pedro Sánchez have become the trendy chant at mass events in Spain. The October 12th parade is the origin of this trend and, once again, the news programs echoed it. On the Telenotícies migdia of TV3, they recovered one of the moments of the booing, adding subtitles to specify the chant of the famous "¡Pedro Sánchez, hijo de puta!" On the Telediario of La 1, they glossed over it quickly as if it were secondary: “También se han repetido los abucheos e insultos contra Sánchez”, including only the background sound without subtitles.

Pedro Sánchez, at a rally in Ponferrada, lashed out at the Supreme Court for pressuring him to approve the grandchildren's law. A law that would allow the grandchildren of republican exiles to vote in Spain. Sánchez must think that the majority of these exiles, in Latin American countries, would vote for progressive options. But that is assuming a lot. Among them all there are those who would, of course. And surely there wouldn't be many who would vote for the PP, of course. But there would also be some—I am thinking of the grandchildren of Catalans—who might choose Catalanist options. In any case, the phrase he let slip was this: "Will the grandchildren of the exiles of Francoism not be able to vote, while the grandchildren of the Francoist regime will?"

On bus 14 in Madrid, which was traveling along the Paseo del Prado and the Recoletos neighborhood this Sunday evening, a boy was insistently asking his mother if they could get up early today to go see the military parade. He asked her after seeing that all the chairs, barriers, and platforms were already in place. "We are not going, I don't like military parades," the mother said, and the boy tactically turned to his father to see if he could reverse the decision. It is not known if he succeeded, but this Monday, October 12th, Hispanic Day, there were indeed many families in the center of Madrid as spectators of the Spanish national holiday, presided over by the monarchs. The ritual was as follows, the same as every year: arrival of the members of the monarchy, military honors, and a performance by the Air Force. Then, the turn of the Army, with the legion's goat. In total, about 4,400 members of the armed forces, security forces, and other civil institutions participated.

Darwin's theory has often been misunderstood: according to the English naturalist, the law of the jungle is not that of the strongest, but that of the most adaptable. The species that triumph are those that best adapt to environmental conditions. This has precisely been the essence of Pedro Sánchez's political survival, based on an extraordinary pragmatic capacity to take advantage of parliamentary arithmetic and the social and economic conditions of each moment, without falling into orthodox rigidities.

Pedro Sánchez Castejón (Madrid, 1972) is, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, "an enigma, wrapped in a mystery inside a hieroglyph". Is he the cynical, cold and unscrupulous monster that the right paints? Or is he the empathetic and compassionate leader for the people who are struggling most that the left defends? Is he an aspiring dictator or, on the contrary, the last wall standing against the global far-right? The only certainty is that between the current Pedro Sánchez and the one who burst onto the political scene in 2014 there is an abyss. And it is this evolution, riddled with dramatic twists, changes of opinion and an undeniable capacity to overcome adversity and adapt reality to his needs, that has led to what we know today as Sanchismo. This is the story of the great prestidigitator of recent Spanish political history.

Spanish politics has stages of incomparable turmoil. These days the acceleration has reached a degree of excitement that makes one fear for the coronary health of governments, politicians, propagandists, and believing citizens in general. Trying to understand the world that surrounds us in full acceleration and once we have exhausted the quotes from the cynic Machiavelli, the blessed Rousseau, the provocateur Nietzsche, and the brave Arendt, we are only left to surrender ourselves to the wisdom of James Bond. Politics today responds to the “shaken, not stirred” (shaken, not stirred) of yet another Martini that we know cannot end well.