Pedro Sánchez spoke at length for La Vanguardia on Sunday and complied with the first law of current politics, which is that one of the headlines given by the interviewee is stillborn. The stillbirth on this occasion was this: “Incorporating Junts and ERC into governance strengthens democracy.”
It didn’t take even forty-eight hours for the socialist boss to discover, rather rediscover, that the phrase limps through the first part of the statement because Junts is not part of the governance equation. This has been demonstrated in the two star plenary sessions that Congress has held in this legislature, that of validation of the royal decrees known as omnibus and that of approval of the amnesty last Tuesday. Both appointments were to strengthen the image that the majority of the investiture was advancing as a bloc. On the other hand, the most they showed is that governance is a mess or in the mud, as they prefer.
Puigdemont is not doing anything that has not been done to him first. Repeat a mantra from the past, since we are all the fruit of our traumas and learning. And the former president of the Generalitat is now practicing with the PSOE what he suffered firsthand a few years ago, when he earned a doctorate in politics beyond municipalism. Puigdemont is not from the CUP, but he does politics in the way that the anti-capitalists did to him during the process. And so do the Republicans.
The CUP and ERC spent the golden years of the initial process remembering daily their complete distrust in Convergència –Junts after many turns on the merry-go-round– and towards the person who was currently leading that project, be it Artur Mas or Carles Puigdemont. That same distrust is what the junteros now proclaim daily regarding the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez.
During the process, mistrust led to the maximum demands towards the suspect and a mode of negotiation based on forcing him to give in to all demands to be credible – without achieving it – or die. This way of doing things took over Artur Mas in 2015 and laid the foundations for the disaster experienced in 2017 with Carles Puigdemont at the helm.
The final result of that negotiating style required of convergents first and junteros later is a political lesson still available to everyone: give up everything to end up dying anyway. Of course, before the last rites arrived, there were great moments that hid the fact that the oxygen was running out: “master plays”, “historical days”, creative script twists and saving one’s skin at the last second by pulling one more bunny out of the top hat Until the road was blocked and the hat stopped giving birth to hares.
Now it is Pedro Sánchez in the hands of Junts who represents the role of Artur Mas or Carles Puigdemont. And the logic he faces is exactly the same: give in more than he can or die. Only, in view of the lessons of the past, he may be aware that no matter how much he does his part, nothing on his part is going to save him with complete certainty from execution, after the gradual decomposition of his part. And perhaps for that reason, because he sees it coming or because he has learned the lesson, the PSOE planted the “this far” flag before the junteros on Tuesday, causing the Amnesty law to return to the bullpens of Congress.
The thirty days that we have ahead of us so that the text can be controlled again will tell us which path Sánchez chooses. If he gives in, he lives. If he remains motionless, he dies. The latter, as long as Junts complies with the threat reiterated by its general secretary, Jordi Turull, when he says that if the PSOE does not change its mind, it will mean that it is failing to comply with the investiture agreements. That month he will also put Junts and the recent tenuous pragmatism attributed to them to the test. He will determine if the trauma of their past experiences is overcome or they remain anchored in the political logic of a decade ago. Because the truth is that someone, PSOE or Junts, will have to renounce their statements.
But whatever the answer, Pedro Sánchez takes note: Junts cares little to nothing about the governance of Spain. It is what you have bought, president, and it is the most you will have.
