If we combined the Anglo-Saxon tradition of naming the person of the year with the Eastern tradition of awarding each year an animal from the Chinese zodiac, 2023 would without a doubt be the year of the Perro Sanxe. Careful, not to be confused with Pedro Sánchez. I explain myself
When Pedro Sánchez was just Pedro Sánchez he seemed like a boxed-in politician. Some graphic comedian drew him as a doll in the hands of Susana Díaz. With her hand in hand, or vice versa, Sánchez arrived at the general secretary of the PSOE. The journalist Jesús Maraña in the book Al fondo a la izquierda attributes this sentence to the last socialist president of Andalusia: “It doesn’t serve, but it serves us”. You only need to see where Díaz and Sánchez are now to gauge how the tale changed.
It was precisely this kind of insolence that drove Sánchez’s first evolution. Without so many disparagements it would be impossible to understand. That general secretary who others thought was being handled began to reveal himself as a guy who was not only tall and handsome, but could also be tenacious and ambitious.
From the defenestration at the head of the PSOE to the victory in the primaries, Sánchez went from humiliated to feared. The censure motion that brings him to the presidency of the Spanish Government continues to add attributes, not always positive: cold, calculating, with no principles other than his own and, if they don’t work, he has others. President Sánchez goes from not sleeping if he had those from Podemos in key ministries to having Iglesias as vice president. It goes from “pardons, not at first” to getting Junqueras and company out of prison.
Sánchez earns the title of person most hated by the Spanish political, media and economic right. And also for Felipe and Guerra, with what that means. Together they enlarge their figure. Sánchez the illegitimate, Sánchez the traitor, Sánchez the traitor, Sánchez the autocrat. The campaign takes root. Sánchez does not defend himself, and the PSOE is swept away in the elections of 28-M.
That night, from May 28 to 29, begins his great transformation. Sánchez advances the elections to the 23rd. “Political suicide”, they say. He goes to all kinds of programs: from Alsina to La Pija y la Quinqui, passing through El Hormiguero.
His enemies try to denigrate him. They exploit the unfortunate “who voted for Txapote”. They cross all the red lines by calling him Perro, a pun on his first name. What seemed like the mother of all offenses, Sánchez turns it into a slogan. He himself is in charge of clarifying to Julia Otero that he is not Perro Sánchez, but Perro Sanxe. And flip the marker. Perro Sanxe gets another million votes, agrees with seven parties and becomes president again. The amnesty is coming. Another “where it says bread, now it says cake”. The right explodes and lets itself be played with words. “Pedro Sánchez son of a bitch”, is sung in Ferraz.
The polls are punishing him, as they already did in the previous polls in 23-J. But Pedro Sánchez is becoming more and more Perro Sanxe. He says what no one has said before Netanyahu. The photo with Puigdemont is swallowed, while it is seen with the European right in Brussels.
Sanxe shows more and more flow in interviews. No one remembers the box anymore. Perro Sanxe improvises, lets himself rub a tenth of a lottery ticket on his back and the number runs out. And he chooses Jorge Javier Vázquez as presenter of his book, where he even allows himself to make jokes about how bad he was in the first debate with Feijóo.
Perro Sanxe has become an evolved version of Sánchez. Like it’s a Pokemon. Just as Pichu evolved into Pikachu, Pedro Sánchez has evolved into Perro Sanxe, and his enemies, that enraged mass, haven’t quite found the kryptonite that ends Clark Kent.