The air of change has entered to ventilate every political corner of the country. Inevitable, I would say. To all the fronts that already surrounded the Government, which were not few, an unexpected State crisis has now been added, one that is not resolved and that has buried by the shovel loads the credit that Pedro Sánchez might have left. If even the lehendakari, faithful among the faithful, stands on the Sunday cover of La Vanguardia to say that “Ceuta could end the legislature,” imagine the reality.
The signs of decomposition are clear and are broadcast live, at the same pace at which the president is unable to explain what is happening with Morocco. The one who began his journey in power putting himself in the hands of Otegi, then moved on to Pablo Iglesias and later chose Puigdemont is now found in the arms of Mohamed VI for unknown reasons.
And yet, the right does not get complacent. Feijóo has a natural tendency to speak as prime minister without being one, and the interview he gave yesterday to EL MUNDO to present his project for “change” was no exception. There is a spontaneous part and a strategic one in this, both eager to appear as a statesman where there are only mud addicts. But that does not mean Feijóo takes victory for granted, far from it.
On the contrary, in Génova, as in Vox, the traumatic experience of the 2023 elections weighs too heavily to fall into the same error of taking the polls for granted. And it is not that they are not positive. Pending Tezanos explaining to us today how fantastic Sánchez’s retreat in La Mareta has been, all serious polls published at the start of this term point to an unprecedented supermajority of the right, with more than 50% of the votes and above 200 seats. There is not a single poll data that allows the PSOE to see a glimmer of recovery anywhere, and the trend is terrible for the socialists, with an accelerated loss of support since spring.
In the survey that Sigma Dos prepares for EL MUNDO, there are around 750,000 theoretically recoverable votes for the PSOE, those who declare themselves “undecided” or say they will not vote. But even if the Sánchez-Puente–Bolaños–Albares quartet mobilized all of them and even seduced some more, it would not be enough. Not to mention the panorama to their left, where they have gone from Rufián‘s self-praise tour to the exciting candidacy of Irene Montero.
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And yet, as I say, the right does not get complacent. In the conversations buzzing these days around the Congress and party headquarters, the topic is how long the Government can hold on in this situation and when the elections will be. Or rather, under what conditions they will be held.
Sánchez almost laughed a few days ago when he said he would decide the call “for the interest of Spain.” Of all possible options, that is the one everyone rules out. On the contrary, one of the unknowns is how much ground will be burned before the end of the contest. As with armies in retreat, the havoc of the last moments can be the worst.
The signs are disastrous. Sánchez has framed the electoral battle in its true anti-democratic terms: PP and Vox do not constitute a political alternation, but a regression. And against a regression, anything goes. Attacks on judges, once a Podemos eccentricity, are now daily routine in the ministries. A campaign of discredit has been launched against the CNI over the Ceuta assault. And the tantrum over the grandchildren law makes one fear the worst from a Government that sees guarantees in the electoral process as a secondary matter.
Both in the PP and in Vox they know that what is coming in the next months is extreme polarization, fanaticism of left-wing voters, and probably an unusual election date, in whatever way. Feijóo states in our interview that “the next Government will be the most difficult since Adolfo Suárez’s,” but what will come first are the most important elections since the Transition. There is, by the way, a notable date. On June 15 next year, it will be 50 years since the first free elections after the dictatorship. Destiny will not want the elections of exclusion and denial of alternation to coincide with the anniversary of the elections of the embrace among Spaniards.
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