“With your feet on the ground, Yolanda.” It was the only phrase with which Pedro Sánchez distanced himself from his vice president in the three-way debate last Wednesday on RTVE. He thus objected to an economic proposal from his partners. On the other hand, Sánchez not only defended the agenda of the Ministry of Equality, from the trans law to the only yes is yes law, but he did so more than Yolanda Díaz herself, despite the fact that it is these policies, and not economic ones, that hinder his possibilities of re-election Its wear comes from issues of national identity (pacts with ERC and Bildu) and gender (laws advocated by Podemos).
The PP has taken advantage of these issues to accuse Sánchez of dividing the Spanish with an excess of ideology. Obviously, the positions of the right are also ideological, but the message that is transmitted is that Sánchez has “criminalized” those who do not share his alliances and his thesis. This supposed divisive desire has been labeled “Sanchismo” and the formula has taken effect. To what extent will it be seen tonight, but the surveys reveal that there was water in the pool, that is, that there is a broad sector of Spanish society with a very combative national identification against the independence movement and whose gender identity feels annoyed with the Podemos initiatives.
For years it has been said that the PSOE is the party that most resembles Spain. Even Sánchez repeats it frequently. But the alliance with Podemos and the pacts with the independentistas have tilted him to one side of the board and the popular ones have seen a gold mine there. That is why Feijóo sells “the change”, vindicates felipism (the most conservative PSOE), asks the socialist barons to abstain from his investiture and displays a huge banner in Madrid with the colors of all the parties to establish itself as the refuge of the transversal voter.
In the PP they proclaim that now they are more like Spain. That the Spanish identify better with a government that is “less ideological” and focused on management. While the Socialists maintain that Spanish society is center-left and shares feminist and environmental values, leaders of the PP summarize their position as follows: “It is one thing to be against violence against women or to know that climate change must be combated, and another is that they are rubbing it in your face all day with highly questionable measures.”
The political scientist Pablo Simón, in an interview published in La Vanguardia, commented that the electoral strength of the PSOE emanated until now from the “Andalusia-Catalonia axis, which made the party the closest thing to Spain itself”. That axis is already unbalanced, it has veered to the right in the south. The PP bases its potential on the Andalusian, Madrid and Valencian vote, in that order. The PSOE, in Andalusian, Catalan and Madrid. The socialist livelihood advances battered in two of its squares.
From 23-J will come a political portrait of a Spain marked by the first experience of a left-wing coalition government and by the wake of the Catalan independence crisis. The PP trusts in a reaction to this bias and hence its motto “it is the moment”. The strategy can be effective, but it is hard to believe that in the medium term a government more or less dependent on Vox is the closest thing to Spain.