PP and Vox have closed the last of the pending pacts. After reaching an agreement in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castilla y León, Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party and Santiago Abascal's party are closing the circle in Andalusia with the investiture of Juanma Moreno thanks to the votes of the far-right. The popular candidate did not overcome a first vote two days ago, but this Thursday afternoon he has managed to leave the Andalusian Parliament as president after having overcome the last hurdles of the negotiation with Vox 'in extremis'. Once again, the "national priority" and the incorporation of the far-right into the government have been part of the core of the pact and are the two main concessions that the PP has been making to Vox for months to maintain regional power.

José María Aznar gave Alberto Núñez Feijóo an order yesterday in front of everyone: to get rid of Sánchez, you must only count on Spaniards. And to govern, in the future, also, only Spaniards, not the PNB, nor Junts. He said it like this:

First, the president of Extremadura, María Guardiola, had to go through Vox's address book, despite the difficulties; then it was the turn of Jorge Azcón's Aragon and Alfonso Fernández Mañueco's Castilla y León. But the greatest exponent of the PP moderates, the Andalusian president, the "Sorayist Juanma Moreno Bonilla, who will also yield to Vox's demands, as he himself has admitted and as the state leadership wants. The agreement is being finalized, but the only doubt remaining is the timing, that is, whether he will capitulate for this Thursday's investiture session or postpone it further, playing hard to get for public opinion. In any case, according to sources familiar with the negotiations between the PP and Vox consulted by ARA, the dilemma was clear from the start: "Either you accept the conditions or elections," said the Vox negotiating team.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo has decided that if the democratic game doesn't favor him enough, the rules must be changed. If he doesn't win, the problem is the system, not him. And some of the citizens who have the right to vote recognized. He fiddlesby crossing the dangerous red line of instilling distrust and suspicion in the guarantees of the process itself. If the difficulties many residents abroad face in getting their vote from where they live are well known, now the leader of the Popular Party intends to put obstacles in the way of a specific type of Spaniards living outside state territory: the grandchildren and descendants of exiles and emigrants who were forced to leave the country, let's say, due to force majeure. Feijóo hasn't even ruffled his hair questioning the validity of a law that aims to repair in the present the consequences of the fierce repression of the war and the dictatorship. Both he and part of the PP and, of course, Vox, seem to want to continue humiliating the victims of the Civil War and the dictatorship ninety years after the "alzamiento" (which was not national at all, "national" was the Republic). As if the executions, prison, and exile of all those who committed no greater crime than defending themselves from fascism were not enough, as if the violence of the past were not enough, now it seems they want to continue perpetuating it in the present. If Franco wanted to exterminate all the elements he considered impure and subversive, and turned Spaniards who were not as he believed they should be into enemies, now the aim is to eliminate the vestiges, memories, and narrative of those who come directly from the horror and are the fruit of the barbarism that began that July of '36. Later they will say that it is the left that digs up the Civil War dead and they will complain about being considered heirs of the dictatorship, but when they attack the losers they show whose sons and grandsons they are. 

Although José María Aznar proclaimed the famous "whoever can, let them do it" against Pedro Sánchez, the former Spanish president is not pressuring Alberto Núñez Feijóo to register a motion of no confidence, unlike Vox. The former PP leader has warned his party that Junts cannot be counted on to bring down the head of the executive, no matter how much Carles Puigdemont's party gives their occasional supportto parliamentary initiatives, of a symbolic nature, against Sánchez's continuity. "Congress cannot manage a constructive no-confidence motion", lamented Aznar, who attributed it to the fact that the allies of the socialist leader's investiture want "to be able to consummate their plundering of the State". The former Spanish president and leader of the PP criticized that Moncloa has ended up being "a Madrid delegation of secessionism".

It has been more than six weeks since the Andalusian elections that linked the popular Juanma Moreno Bonilla to Vox. The acting president of Andalusia, one of the barons of the PP most reluctant to agree with the far-right, has been forced to negotiate with them because fell two seats short of an absolute majority. However, the talks have not yet reached a satisfactory conclusion. This was confirmed this Tuesday afternoon in the first investiture attempt in the Andalusian Parliament. Santiago Abascal's party voted against making Moreno Bonilla president, arguing that they have not yet closed a programmatic agreement with the PP. The far-right party has blamed the baron popular for having arrived too late –Moreno Bonilla waited more than three weeks after the elections to sit down and talk for the first time–.

In their desperation to obtain the support that will allow them to oust Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa, the Popular Party is now playing their particular tites, tites with Junts. PP leaders are aware that their policy regarding Catalonia has consisted not only of frontal ultranationalism (enriched by the radioactive energy of Vox, a partner and, in fact, a split from the PP itself), but also of a Catalanophobic populism that is profoundly divisive and, often, directly civil-war-like. Aware that these are not very good credentials to ask for Junts' votes, they have decided to resort to selective amnesia. The mantra is to look to the future and not "to the past", a remote place that, in the PP, they place between 2017 and 2018. This is what the "bad" and "good" spokespersons have said and repeated these days — the slimy Miguel Tellado and the wolf in sheep's clothing Borja Sémper — and also the curious anti-leader Núñez Feijóo, completely engrossed in his role as a man who can't find his glasses. piolins, the savage beatings by the police mob on October 1st, the más dura será la caída” from prosecutor Maza, the approval of Article 155 and the dismantling of Catalan self-government institutions one morning in the Senate, the farcical trial against the leaders of the Procés, with Rajoy and several ministers and high-ranking officials — as well as dozens of police officers — giving false testimony, the police and judicial persecution against Catalan independentists; all of this was, according to Sémper, "the useful and reasonable position that a state party must have".It is opportune, in any case, that the PP proposes this exercise of interested amnesia precisely when the Statute was approved twenty years ago. What times! This must be prehistory already, but the old people in the area still remember the PP's petition tables all over Spain asking for "a little signature against the Catalans”, the accusations —even then— of coup and terrorism, some not very veiled calls for military intervention, an avalanche of insults and of fakes xenophobic and supremacist against "Catalans" from media outlets controlled by the Spanish right and, needless to say, the lawsuit to the Constitutional Court that was resolved with the ruling that laminated a Statute voted by citizens and endorsed by the Parliament of Catalonia and the Spanish Courts, in a true —this one— judicial coup d'état that continues to this day with all the noise and fury we know well.In summary, the PP's hate speech against Catalonia and everything related to it has somewhat old roots and is a bit difficult to hide just because they are now willing to literally do anything for Junts' votes. On the Catalan side, it is urgent to get rid of the bullshit (whether Josep Pla or whoever said it) according to which there is nothing more similar to a right-wing Spaniard than a left-wing Spaniard. It's a joke to blow off steam at a supper, but above all it's a boomerang that always returns and makes a deeper and deeper cut.

Pedro Sánchez is not exactly preparing a "tupinada", but rather designing through "electoral engineering" a plan to win the next state elections thanks to the vote from abroad. This is the thesis defended by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who this Tuesday wanted to place the Popular Party one step below Vox in the accusations of future electoral fraud that both parties have been fueling for some time. Feijóo, who was interviewed by the media outlet La7 Región de Murcia, thus specified his words on Monday on esRadio, where he openly criticized that the so-called "law of the clean" – a provision included in the law of democratic memory – is designed to alter the electoral roll in favor of the PSOE.

Almost all the analysis space is occupied by the noise of Spanish politics, a noise that has two fundamental emitters. The first is corruption close to the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez (Ábalos, Koldo, Cerdán), which adds a new indicted person:

To oust Pedro Sánchez, the PP needs Junts and the populars' latest moves consolidate a shift on the Procés and Carles Puigdemont's party in particular. However, for the moment, it's all just simple rhetoric. As ARA has learned from various sources familiar with the PP and Junts, there are no contacts between the parties.

The PP's crusade to bring down Pedro Sánchez runs into the fact that it depends on Catalan and Basque parties for it to have real effects. In this context, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has revived one of those proposals that the popular party has in mind to end the dependence on independence movements in the Congress of Deputies and, in turn, also on Vox, to whom they are increasingly tied in more autonomies. The PP leader has proposed an electoral reform that would give the winning list a "plus" of deputies "to facilitate stability." A scenario that could have prevented Pedro Sánchez from governing this legislature in which the sum of PP and Vox fell just four deputies short of an absolute majority. This is what Feijóo defended in an interview this Monday on EsRadio, after being directly asked about ways to prevent "minority groups from being overrepresented" in the lower house.

This weekend, the PP of Catalonia held its congress, and the party leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, came and said: “Like most Catalans, we also want to turn the page”. The phrase has been interpreted as an offer to Junts so that one day it may be possible for the PP candidate for the presidency of the Spanish government to receive their votes. Junts must already know what they want to do, but it would seem that Feijóo is playing at an interested confusion: Junts voted with the PP and Vox that Sánchez had to resign, but has said in every way that he does not intend to invest Feijóo, meaning that for now Feijóo will have to wait.But it is interesting to delve into Feijóo's phrase to see what the popular candidate understands by wanting to turn the page.And the answer could not be more predictable: that Catalonia should return to the common regime autonomous path, that it should pay, that it should be silent, and if it has to do something exceptional, it should do so to offer new glories to Spain. And that's when Feijóo pulls the rabbit of the Sagrada Família out of his hat. Look at this tweet on social media:“The image of the Sagrada Família. The one the PP wants to represent”. It reminded me of what happened a few years ago, when TVE premiered Operación Triunfo and the PP said that the contest embodied their values of effort and meritocracy to achieve success. Does something work and is liked? They make it their own. Theirs, in their own way. Listen to this minute and a half of Feijóo, very revealing of the thinking he has about Catalonia:“I want to mention something that has surprised again, finally, and that we haven't seen in Catalonia for decades. It is a moment that moved millions of people, and it is none other than the extraordinary inauguration of the tower of Jesus of the Sagrada Familia with Pope Leo XIV. It was the symbol of a capable Catalonia, of a Catalonia that was thinking big again. Capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition”. Look, Mr. Feijóo, I'm very glad you liked the blessing ceremony of the tallest tower of the Sagrada Família, but hire a speechwriter who doesn't mix apples and oranges. You say he's "surprised again, finally"? Finally what? "That we haven't seen Catalonia for decades"? Do you really think that Catalonia hasn't done anything good in 34 years, between the '92 Games and the inauguration the other day? Has representing 25% of Spanish exports and 20% of GDP happened on its own? Has the player that the followers of la roja pray to and who has half the world in love come up like a mushroom? Does it seem to you that wanting independence is not thinking big, that organizing a referendum to discuss it as the most democratic countries do is not characteristic of a country "capable of doing extraordinary things and capable of building a collective ambition?" Here, the one that is not capable of doing things is the State. And I'm not referring to doing extraordinary things, but ordinary ones, like getting trains to run. What is commendable, Mr. Feijóo, is that with the fiscal deficit – extraordinary, this one – that has been dragging on for decades, the Catalans, as your predecessor Rajoy used to say, do things. But please, continue. "That day we did not see one part of Catalonia impose itself on another; we did not see one part of Spain against the rest of Spain. No, what we saw was a part of Spain offering the best it has, and we want to see it again more".

"Continue to deepen the government's erosion." This is the PP's strategy in this final stretch of the legislature. Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party has deployed it over the past few weeks – marked by the judicial agenda surrounding the PSOE – activating the armed wings at their disposal against Pedro Sánchez while still resisting the step of presenting a motion of no confidence, as Vox demands. The popular party has used other parliamentary tools to expose the "extreme weakness" of the Spanish executive's leader, made use of a sympathetic media apparatus, and once again resorted to the justice system while the street mobilization, on the eve of summer, remains paralyzed.

The floodgates of political contempt have long been open in Spain, and the water of mutual contempt between the opposition and the government is at a record level. The worst thing is not that they mutually detest each other and permanently show it, but the effects this has on public opinion which will one day go to vote.

The most common practice in democratic countries' political parties is to hold elections in governing bodies with a periodicity of usually four years. In the Catalan PP, however, this has not been the case. A four-year extension has allowed Alejandro Fernández to accumulate two terms in one: he was elected in 2018 in Sitges, but the party did not convene the congress planned for 2022. Four years late and despite multiple challenges and public clashes with Alberto Núñez Feijóo's state leadership, Fernández has managed to survive and this Saturday he has been re-elected with 97.51% of the votes in the formation's sixteenth congress, in an enthronement led by the Galician leader at the Hotel Grand Marina in Barcelona. Furthermore, he has managed to impose his entire plan thanks to Feijóo's full approval, but, according to the Catalan politician, this has been done "from unity." However, the state leader has asked him to look out for the party and has sent a message: "Change cannot be made without Catalonia and much less against Catalonia," he stated.

PP, Vox and Junts yesterday demanded Sánchez's resignation or that he submit to a confidence vote through a vote that has no practical value because Sánchez will neither resign nor submit to a confidence vote. The vote has political value, of course, because 3 years ago Junts voted in favor of Sánchez's investiture and yesterday asked him to step down in a vote. And at the same time, it is no victory for the PP, because it does not have Junts's votes for a motion of censure which, that one sí, could bring down Sánchez. And despite everything, yesterday, at the moment of the results, both benches were shouting and applauding.

Last-minute developments in the Catalan PP. In a party with several factions, a congress like the one this Saturday opens up unknowns and leads to movements that could alter the calm scenarios that party heavyweights had designed weeks ago. The Catalan popular leader, Alejandro Fernández, intended that the appointment of Juan Fernández as future general secretary would lead him to step down as parliamentary spokesperson, with the position going to Lorena Roldán, his right-hand woman in the Parliament and the only "alejandrista" in the parliamentary group. But in recent days, there have been several moves that, as ARA has learned from multiple sources, have led to alternative scenarios emerging. The struggle to choose the party's number two, therefore, involves betting on Juan Fernández or opening a third way. And in this latter scenario, one of the names that has been most strongly mentioned as a possible general secretary is David Solé, the right-hand man of the mayor of Castelldefels, Manu Reyes.

There are days when a new situation is foreseen, in which even a change of era is sensed. And, from our point of view, this is what happened yesterday in Madrid.  The debate in Congress on Sánchez's explanations went as one might imagine: Sánchez defending himself against the PP with the "you too!" (because, of course, the PP can write encyclopedias about corruption), accusing the justice system of bias and therefore, of lawfare, making a somewhat forced turn, presenting the PSOE as a victim of the corruption of Ábalos and Cerdán, and reducing the crimes to a specific handful of delinquents. And Feijóo saying all sorts of things to him. And Rufián asking for a government plan. And Junts made an unexpected proposal, this one, to tell Sánchez: “we will invest a new socialist president and we will hold elections when the time comes, next year” (a proposal that Sánchez got rid of by inviting Junts to vote for a motion of no confidence from Feijóo, which Junts will not do). This would be an account adjusted to the facts of what we heard yesterday.But there was more, much more. Because, you know what? Feijóo told Sánchez that he will be indicted very soon. And the PP spokesperson in Congress said that there will be people who will start singing, like the corrupter Aldama, who will not go to prison and has saved three million euros in commissions that he will not have to return. In other words, the PP knows what the judges are preparing and what reports the Police and the Civil Guard are preparing. And in the afternoon, Begoña Gómez, Sánchez's wife, had to personally go and hand over her passport to the judge, and Zapatero's entire agenda was leaked.

The remaining time of the current legislature in the State is one of the great unknowns in Spanish politics at the moment. While Pedro Sánchez proclaims his will to resist as long as possible and the PP relies on the wear and tear that the Spanish president may suffer from the succession of scandals, from Vox the strategy is to proclaim the "danger" that the coming months could pose if the socialist leader remains in power. The reaction of Santiago Abascal's party to the Supreme Court ruling against José Luis Ábalos has been to warn that what they call the socialist "criminal mafia" is willing to do "anything" to stay in Moncloa until 2027. And even beyond that electoral date. "The worst is yet to come," they predict. The almost apocalyptic scenario presented by the far-right includes the hypothesis that Sánchez could "steal" the next Spanish elections.

"What else needs to happen for Pedro Sánchez to resign immediately?". That is what Alberto Núñez Feijóo asked in a press conference convened to assess what he has called the "serious" sentence of the Supreme Court against José Luis Ábalos. The leader of the PP has argued that the only way out is for the Spanish president to call elections "immediately" in view of what the Popular Party considers "a condemnation of Sánchez's government" because the former Minister of Transport played a predominant role both in the first governments of the socialist leader and in the PSOE as organization secretary and in Sánchez's rise.