From shock to shock. Hand in hand with Pedro Sánchez, but in the dark and bewildered, all the socialists went in just one week from enthusiasm to collective depression and from there to euphoria. They always allege in the PSOE, then and now, that both its leadership and its militancy have a “cyclothymic” mood. One day they are at the top of the mountain, believing themselves to be the kings of mambo, and the next day they fall down the bottomless pit of despair. And, without a break in continuity, the next day they are once again off the map of happiness.
This time it was Sánchez who took the PSOE on this hectic roller coaster, from which some emerge dizzy and others still with the acceleration in their bodies. On Sunday, April 21, election day in Euskadi ended in celebration for all socialists, despite the fact that they barely registered 14.2% of the votes. But they increased by more than 27,000 ballots compared to the 2020 elections, and won two seats, up to twelve, which together with the fact that the PNV retreated in its positions, Bildu could not put them in a compromise and the PP did not meet their expectations If they were decisive, they led the PSOE to enthusiasm. The electoral candidate and leader of the Basque socialists, Eneko Andueza, already began negotiating yesterday with the PNV the re-establishment of the coalition in the Basque Government. But from “a position of strength,” the socialists highlighted.
The day after the Basque elections, Monday, April 22, Sánchez met with the PSOE executive in Ferraz and warned that Alberto Núñez Feijóo was very wrong if he thought that his political cycle was coming to an end, just because he had revalidated the absolute majority. of the PP in Galicia last February. The socialists recharged their batteries, to face the elections in Catalonia on May 12, and even the European elections on June 9, with even greater vigor. Sánchez confirmed, and it was announced on Wednesday, that Vice President Teresa Ribera will be the headliner of the PSOE in this appointment with the polls that will crown this electoral spring of 2024.
But that same Wednesday afternoon, Sánchez unexpectedly published on his social networks that he was suspending his agenda until yesterday to reflect on his resignation as President of the Government, in the face of the “harassment and demolition operation” that he attributes to the right against his woman, Begoña Gómez. The PSOE went into shock, was literally shocked, plunged into misery. Especially when Sánchez disappeared from the scene and the team closest to him began to digest that, indeed, he was going to throw in the towel.
The federal committee last Saturday, which culminated with the leadership of the PSOE joining in hugs and tears with the crowd of militants gathered at the doors of Ferraz, demanding in unison that Sánchez not resign, was contradictory for some socialists: they did not understand so many displays of enthusiasm… when this was supposed to be a funeral.
Once they had settled into the devastating impression that Sánchez was leaving, the president changed their pace again and yesterday announced that he was staying. Despite the new script change, unbridled joy immediately broke out in the PSOE: “We continue, with more strength!”
It now remains to be seen what impact these emotional swings have on the pending elections and on the development of the legislature, with general state budgets awaiting the return of summer. For some, in any case, Sánchez’s succession debate will be put on hold until 2027. Although if his sudden resignation only left the door open to María Jesús Montero, they now think that the succession bench will be expanded. Waiting for the moment to come.
