Even if it doesn’t seem like it, it’s been a week of lyrical reminiscences. It started with Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s kind of paronomasia, the play on words that came out of an insult with a Castí accent (‘joputa’) directed at Pedro Sánchez and ended in offerings of fruit baskets to the Madrid president . Ayuso took advantage of the slip, as in almost everything, to attract the spotlight that, incidentally, was diverted for a while from Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He started with this literary resource and continued with Aitor Esteban’s verse dedicated to the leader of the PP: “Alberto, tu tractor tiene gripado el motor por utilizar aceite Vox”. The Penabista thus entered into another investiture debate, in 2017, when relations with the popular were still placid. Then the PNB recited to Rajoy: “Si bien me quieres Mariano, dame menos leña y más grano”. And the president replied with his usual sneer: “If you want grain, Aitor, I’ll let you treat me.” Anecdotes? Not so much. The two scenes reflect Feijóo’s situation: a right-wing like the one in Madrid that is rooted in a strong Spanish nationalism and links with the ultra-right that prevent it from approaching its peripheral natural allies. For the PP, between the tempting fruit and the adulterated oil there is no way to plow a future, at least until the new cycle of Galician and Basque elections passes, culminating in the European elections next summer.
Sánchez doesn’t have it easy either. And since we’re talking about metaphors, let’s rescue one from Pablo Casadode in February 2022. It’s not that far away, even if in politics it seems like an eternity. Don’t miss any detail of what Casado said: “The entire parliamentary arch has realized that Sánchez is toxic. Every party he deals with, that he touches, ends up having problems. It has gone from the Frankenstein coalition to the Dracula coalition. He infects everyone who talks to him. Everyone he bites ends up being a zombie like him. And this is something that everyone will take into account.” Casado already realized that the weakness of the PP is its inability to agree with other forces while Vox continues to monopolize a part of the pie that once belonged to the popular people. And so he begged them to stay away from Dracula. Feijóo also saw it on 23-J. That is why he commissioned trusted people to make contacts with Junts and PNB, which did not bear fruit. Carles Puigdemont not only authorized them, but thought he could bid at the same time with the PP and the PSOE. He even speculated on the possibility of allying himself with the PP and the PNB for a motion of no confidence in Sánchez if he does not comply with the agreements, but this option is unfeasible as it clashes with the incompatibility of forming a blog in which Vox appears.
Those of Feijóo also tempted the Basque nationalists, certified from the podium by Esteban: “Someday I will explain what they offered me just two months ago…” The anger of the leader of the PP with the PNB is capital and he left notice in his reply to Esteban, whom he accused of having “changed the tractor for the sickle and the hammer” to, then, warn him that he would go against them, to look for his voters, of course, to the Basque elections, with the clear aim of scratching him enough for Bildu to unseat the Basque government’s PNB.
The coming months will unfold in this climate of cross revenges. The balancing act Sánchez moves on the network of parties with conflicting interests that only unites his aversion to the far right and an inflexible vision of the territorial model. The success of the legislature will depend on how it reconciles the interests of its allies and how they collude with each other to resolve their particular wars. For example, the PNB and Junts have recovered their relations and can form a counterweight towards the center right in all the policies championed by Sumar or by Bildu and ERC. In turn, these last two parties will form a front with Podemos if the purples do not enter the Government with a ministry with the aim of letting Yolanda Díaz be exposed and presenting Sumar as a force surrendered to the PSOE and with little ambition for social change .
All this in addition to the fierce rivalry between Junts and ERC, but above all the difficulties of Sánchez and Puigdemont in finding a political story to walk through without getting hurt, something that was already evident during the investiture debate . The leader of Junts and his socialist interlocutor, Santos Cerdán, could not agree on the terms in which they would justify the agreements and, at the first bend, they almost derailed. Sánchez frames the pacts and the amnesty in a process of “reunion” and “forgiveness” to conquer “coexistence” between Catalans. Puigdemont tries to justify his support for the PSOE without changing his account of these years about a conflict for which the Spanish State is mainly responsible. At the moment, for the former president, it is not advisable to break without having explored the options of the new dialogue table with verifier included and without the amnesty law starting to be applied, but with the European and Catalan elections in the horizon it will be difficult to avoid tensions in Junts’ relationship with the PSOE.
In view of this scenario, Feijóo has proved Casado and his fondness for Bram Stoker’s narrative to be right. But while the defenestrated leader of the popular people warned Sánchez’s allies of the supposed vampiric nature of the socialist, Feijóo hopes that it will be these parties that will be responsible for sucking the president’s blood and shortening the legislature. In the background, the dystopian landscape of the demonstrations that warn of the end of democracy in Spain.
