This text belongs to ‘Político’, the newsletter that Lola García sends every Thursday to the readers of ‘La Vanguardia’.
Four years have passed since that somewhat forced embrace of Pedro Sánchez with Pablo Iglesias to the kisses and harmony of the president with Yolanda Díaz this week in the signing of an agreement to govern in coalition. In four years everything has changed. Neither the socialists’ interlocutor is the same, nor their relationship either. But above all, Sumar is not Unidas Podemos. That Podemos that broke all the molds with its arrival to power, which raised a lot of concern among economic, judicial and social sectors, today only has five deputies and it is more than likely that it will not be in the Government. The 15-M movement, whose political expression catalyzed the discontent of the great recession of 2008 and elevated Iglesias as number two in the executive, has already been assimilated by the system, although it has left its mark. What Sumar intends to replace him with is still unknown.
The president and his current “vice”, as he himself called her, spared no signs of affection during the presentation of the agreement, an event in which even the slogan was measured. A “Spain progresses” in red was replaced, at the request of Sumar, with a “Spain advances” in black so as not to identify the acronym with those of the PSOE. Marketing details. Little compared to the uncertainty and vertigo that permeated the Congress room where the socialist and Iglesias gave an account of their first pact. Díaz prides herself on being a good negotiator, never leaving the table or erasing her smile no matter how much her interlocutor loses her temper. Whether because of her talents or because what we have accomplished in these four years allows it, the truth is that this agreement has been reached in a few weeks and without fanfare. In fact, the problems in Sumar’s world come more from the ranks of Podemos (which no longer hides its desire to seek struggle) than from her relationship with the PSOE.
Podemos’ blows are going to be noticeable. Sánchez and Díaz have no intention of including the purples in the Council of Ministers. They would go from two to zero. They will be informed before the investiture vote and that will put Podemos on the ropes. More than the vice president, it will be Sánchez who will have to discuss with them and decide whether to compromise or not. And, if so, if a ministry is agreed upon as long as its head is not Irene Montero. This dynamic of bilateral negotiation between the purples and the PSOE can be repeated during the legislature. Apart from Podemos, the new legislature should serve to know what Sumar becomes.
If the pact between Sánchez and Díaz has been much easier to achieve, it is because Sumar’s electorate is different from Podemos’s four years ago. Their expectations are no longer a total challenge to the system. Its language is no longer that of the people against “the caste” to the same extent as before, nor does it propose turning around the “regime crisis.” His presence in the executive is no longer subversive nor does it constitute a risk for the majority of the powers of the State or Spanish society, although there is a part that does not like it at all. But even Isabel Díaz Ayuso has forgotten the dilemma “communism or freedom.” What is truly revolutionary about the next government is no longer the vector that pulls to the left, but rather the peripheral forces, the relationship with the Catalan and Basque independence movement.
Sánchez’s probable agreement with Junts, ERC, PNV and Bildu opens a different period in the relationship with two territories that demand at least a new formulation of their status within Spain. For a debate like the one proposed by the Penevistas to bear fruit, it would be necessary for the PP to get involved, now that Alberto Núñez Feijóo is trying to rebuild ties with the PNV and Junts. But it is a scenario impossible to propose until after the Basque, Galician and European elections. And for the popular ones it is difficult to escape the story about the unity of Spain at risk.
The territorial axis raises more susceptibility than the ideological one between left and right. The legislature will be determined by the approaches coming from Euskadi and Catalonia, where bitter conflicts are taking place. The competition between Junts and ERC, and that of ERC and Junts, will be noticeable in their relationship with the PSOE when there are also the electoral appointments of the Basque Country (before the summer of 2024) and Catalonia (early 2025) ahead. . Dealing with the aspirations and rivalries of all these formations is another challenge for Sánchez as difficult or more difficult than governing with what Podemos once represented.
Pools for the new government. At Moncloa everyone is convinced that Pedro Sánchez will be sworn in as president. They hope that the wear and tear of such a long negotiation will fade when the new government is formed and that the bitterness and concerns of this process will dissolve with the photo of the brand new executive. Its composition is in the hands of the president, but no one doubts that he has some surprises in store. And the pools begin.
Sánchez’s first cabinet relied on the figure of Carmen Calvo, a veteran socialist who served as a counterweight to a young president with no government experience, a role similar to that played by María Teresa Fernández de la Vega with President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Later, the triad of vice presidents, Nadia Calviño, Teresa Ribera and Yolanda Díaz, brought a patina of empathy and managerial efficiency to a president who is often criticized for coldness and whose main quality is political instinct. That scheme is now at risk, since Calviño aspires to preside over the European Investment Bank (EIB) and Ribera could be a European commissioner (the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Planas, is also a possible candidate).
Sánchez is not entirely satisfied with some of the changes he made in the last ministerial remodeling, in which he opted for faces of young female mayors unknown beyond their municipalities. In some cases the experiment has gone well, in others it has not. Those around him point out that the new government will be made up of figures with a strong political profile, both in their negotiating capacity and in standing up to the opposition. A name for the pools: Óscar Puente, the Valladolid deputy who responded to Feijóo in the failed investiture of the PP leader.
