Princess Eleonor’s Twelfth of October had a radiant sun. A peaceful summer day, with many people on the street, only tense by the anger of the right in the capital of Spain against Pedro Sánchez, secretary general of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, acting president of the Government and political winner of the last elections generals if the repeat elections are not forced due to a lack of support for their investiture. This is the main focus today.
A summer day in the middle of autumn. A changing world. A world with two terrible wars underway, and others in the waiting room, drawing horrors on the horizon. A calmer country than the fevered media convey. An admittedly complicated political situation and the peña of the Salamanca neighborhood shouting: “Que et voti Txapote!”. Yesterday was an interesting and surely sobering day for the notebook of the heir to the throne, who on the 31st will swear the Constitution in front of the Congress of Deputies.
“Que et voti Txapote!”, shouts the massif of the race after having politically lost the last general elections, despite the overwhelming forecasts of victory in the more than one hundred polls that were published in Spain during the first seventeen days of the month of July
This slogan, which Alberto Núñez Feijóo did not like very much, won in the municipal and regional elections in May, but was defeated by the verdict of the ballot boxes in July. In the second round, Spain said no to this look, but the Popular Party seems to have lost control of a war cry promoted by Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s voracious propaganda team. It is the angry cry of the right of the capital. It’s Milei holding a rally in Argentina with a chainsaw. It is the error that the PSOE was expecting yesterday.
Socialist presidents have been booed at the Twelfth of October festival for almost twenty years. It all started in 2004, the year of the great tragedy. The whistles in Paseo de la Castellana, particularly intense in the tribunes occupied by relatives of military personnel, began after the victory of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the dramatic general elections of March 14. They grew in the following years, accompanying the processing of the new Statute of Catalonia. They were interrupted after the victory of Mariano Rajoy in the elections of December 2011 and reappeared after the motion of no confidence won by Pedro Sánchez in May 2018. Until recently, the boos occupied a rather secondary place in the chronicles journalism Last year, however, much of the capital’s press gave them the treatment of unappealable popular verdict. The good people of Madrid condemned Sánchez. Then came July 23, 2023. And now, the rage. The Twelfth of October festival begins to be the day of the Esbroncada a l’Adversari. Spain has pending a reflection on the true nature of its national holiday.
Princess Eleanor was impeccable in her premiere as hostess at the Royal Palace reception, in which the traditional political circles were this time less important and took place in different spaces. Accompanied by the Queen, the Princess talked to the press in the Columns room, while Pedro Sánchez answered questions in a room attached to the gala dining room.
The acting president did not reveal any news about the ongoing negotiations for the investiture, which he described as “complex”, but he let slip, with calculated ambiguity, that he could soon hold a telephone conversation with Carles Puigdemont.
