The high expectations that the Socialists harbored to launch their electoral campaign before the only face to face between Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo were frustrated, according to some leaders, just fifteen minutes after starting the television duel.
Whenever Sánchez faced Feijóo in the Senate, he was knocked out, they say. And he also triumphed, they highlight, in his most risky television interviews, before Pablo Motos or Ana Rosa Quintana. Which disappointed their optimistic forecasts even more, and their morale sank again, seeing a Sánchez whom Feijóo disconcerted and took out of his lane, even though it was with “a mountain of lies”, as the head of the club denounced yesterday. Executive upon his arrival at the NATO summit in Vilnius, to which he was unable to react effectively. “The noise prevented him from conveying his arguments more clearly,” they admit in the leadership of the PSOE. “The format of the debate was very uncomfortable,” they allege.
“Feijóo lied without ruffling his hair. Sánchez tried to unmask his lies, with more or less success, but the format was very complicated ”, they acknowledge in Ferraz. “It is very difficult to defend your proposal, fight a lie and convey your truth, in front of those who only lie without blinking,” they justify. In addition, they assume that there is no possibility of “correcting” in a new face-to-face, since there will be no more: “Feijóo tries to expose himself as little as possible.”
Despite the fact that expectations were not met at all, the Socialists are not throwing in the towel: “The campaign remains.” And the debate, they say, “is not going to condition the vote.” “An error can cost you dearly, but there were no errors by Sánchez,” they allege. The face-to-face result will not modulate their strategy of putting all the spotlights on the alliance of the PP and the extreme right of Vox, as they say, since they insist that the PSOE is “gaining positions” in the polls.
So if Sánchez did not win the debate, the Socialists want to “win the game” of the post-debate, denouncing Feijóo’s “lies”. The president himself began yesterday, after being “satisfied” with the face-to-face. “Many things have been clarified and it has become clear that the one who has a country project is the PSOE and not Feijóo,” he said.
“Facing us we saw lies, insults and a stark use of ETA terrorism that Spanish society defeated many years ago,” warned Sánchez. “A mountain of lies because behind it there is nothing. What there is is a total absence of a political project and a disturbing tactic by Feijóo to embrace Abascal”.
“Do you really think we are going to let this country go back in time? It will be no! ”, Sánchez settled in a new electoral video with which he, along with other members of the Government, goes on the counterattack.
