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 stillborn on this occasion was this: “Incorporating Junts and ERC into governance strengthens democracy”.
It didn’t take the socialist forty-eight hours to discover, or rather rediscover, that the sentence was lame in the first part of the statement, because Junts is not part of the governability equation. This has been demonstrated in the two plenums held by Congress in this legislature, the one validating the royal decrees known as the Omnibus and the one approving the amnesty on Tuesday. Both appointments were to reinforce the image that the majority of the investiture was advancing en masse. Instead, what they evidenced is that governance is made of dust or mud, whichever you prefer.
Puigdemont is not doing anything that has not been done to him first. It repeats a mantra from the past, as we are all a product of our traumas and learnings. And the former president of the Generalitat will practice with the PSOE what he suffered in his own flesh a few years ago, when he got his 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.
CUP and ERC spent the golden years of the initial process remembering on a daily basis their complete mistrust in Convergència – together after many turns at the easels – and towards the person who would conjuncturally lead that project, be it Artur Mas or Carles Puigdemont. This same mistrust is now being proclaimed daily by the Junters regarding the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez.
During the process, mistrust led to maximum demands on the suspect and to a way of negotiation based on forcing him to give in to all demands in order to be credible – without succeeding – or die. This way of doing things was charged to Artur Mas in 2015 and laid the foundations for the disaster experienced in 2017 with Carles Puigdemont at the helm.
The end result of that negotiating style demanded of convergents first and joiners later is a political lesson available to all, still: give up everything to end up dying anyway. Of course, before the end came, there were great moments that disguised the fact that the oxygen was running out: “master plays”, “historic days”, creative script twists and saving the lapel at the last second by pulling out one more bunny top hat Until the road became blind and the hat stopped giving birth to hares.
Now it is Pedro Sánchez in the hands of Junts who plays the role of Artur Mas or Carles Puigdemont. And the logic he faces is exactly the same: yield more than he can or die. Only that, in view of the lessons of the past, he may be aware that no matter how much he gives in, nothing will prevent him from execution with complete certainty, given the gradual disintegration of his party. And perhaps for this reason, because it sees it coming or because it has learned its lesson, the PSOE planted the flag of “this far” in front of the meeting on Tuesday, which caused the amnesty law to return to the fold of Congress.
The thirty days we have in front of us so that the text can be put together again will tell us which path Sánchez chooses. If he gives in he lives. If he stays still 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 opinion, it will mean that it is in breach of the investiture agreements. That month will also test Junts and the recent tenuous pragmatism attributed to them. It will determine if the trauma of their past experiences has been overcome or if they remain anchored in the political logic of a decade ago. Because the truth is that someone, PSOE or Junts, will have to give up their claims.
But whatever the answer, let Pedro Sánchez take note: at Junts the governability of Spain matters little to nothing. It’s what he bought, President, and it’s the most he’ll ever have.
