Seen and unseen, Pedro Sánchez yesterday undertook a small technical readjustment in the composition of the Government, before finally throwing himself into the mother of all electoral battles to save and re-edit the coalition Executive between the PSOE and the ‘political space to his left, which Vice President Yolanda Díaz will now try to build.
This morning the President of the Spanish Government will pose on the steps of La Moncloa with the last expected composition of the Council of Ministers of this legislature, already in the final stretch of his mandate. A photo in which, after pledging their positions before the King in the Zarzuela, the Canary Héctor Gómez and the Galician José Manuel Miñones will already have their new portfolios as brand new Ministers of Industry, Commerce and Tourism, and of Health, respectively .
“It’s always surprising”, warned Moncloa about Sánchez’s ability to exercise his exclusive prerogative to appoint and remove ministers without attending to the previous traversals that circulate. And the head of the Executive surprised again with these appointments, forced by the resignations of Reyes Maroto and Carolina Darias from their portfolios to run as candidates in the municipal elections of May 28 for the mayorships of Madrid and Las Palms.
In the photograph of this last composition of the Government in this legislature, today they will share the staircase with PSOE ministers, new or veteran, Yolanda Díaz and the two ministers who endorse the electoral candidacy that the vice president will announce next Sunday, Joan Subirats and Alberto Garzón.
But also the ministers of Podemos, Irene Montero and Ione Belarra, who maintain the challenge for the formation of the Sumar platform.
That all these actors in the political space to the left of the PSOE present themselves aligned in the general elections scheduled for the month of December will depend on Sánchez being able to have options to revalidate, as he intends, his mandate for another four years. And that it can block the way to the change of the political cycle in all of Spain that Alberto Núñez Feijóo is promoting.
If the space that Yolanda Díaz tries to lead to the left of the PSOE is presented at the polls cohesive, and not fractured in a fratricidal war, it could displace Vox as the third political force in Spain and facilitate the re-election of Sánchez and the re-issue of ‘a progressive coalition Executive. If the leftists do not manage to overcome the division, on the other hand, the ultra-right could revalidate the current parliamentary representation and smoothen Feijóo’s path to the presidency of the Government.
Sánchez himself yesterday, after announcing the signings of Gómez and Miñones and starting to campaign for Maroto and Darias, promised to “persevere” in his government action “in these next nine months” that remain until the general elections , with a closed defense of the coalition between the PSOE and Unides Podemos. “We will do it with the political tools of the progressive coalition that has put an end to social involution”, he emphasized.
“A coalition – celebrated Sánchez – that has been able to weave agreements with social agents, with various political formations, with the other member states of the European Union, and that has been able to push forward 200 laws in Parliament, three general budgets of the State and also launch the response plan to the war, endowed with 45,000 million euros, and the recovery plan with 140,000 million euros, and which has received the highest rating from the European Commission”.
The head of the Executive emphasized again that he needs another four-year legislature, like the current one, to overturn all the policies imposed by Mariano Rajoy. “This has been the path in this legislature, in which we have had to advance with the wind against two gales that were not in anyone’s forecasts. This will be the path along which we will look to advance in the remaining months of the legislature and it will also be the route for the coming years if the Spanish decide to renew their trust in us with their vote”, he argued. “Because we need a decade of progressive governments to reverse the social, economic and environmental devastation left by the previous decade”, he justified.
“We have a long road ahead of social improvements, economic changes, environmental challenges and feminist advances. In these last three years we have had to deal with a succession of gales, an extreme health emergency, natural disasters in our territory and a war in European territory and the economic uncertainty that all this has generated”, he pointed out. And despite that, he assured, “we have been able to get our country to avoid the obstacles and move forward”. “It is, therefore, easy to imagine what we can achieve together when the wind blows in our favor”, emphasized the President of the Government, in line with the electoral speech he is already using in his rallies to win re-election after the date with the December polls.
And always without respite, as is the rule of the house. Sánchez landed yesterday very early in the morning in Moncloa, coming from the Ibero-American Summit held in the Dominican Republic, and at 9 a.m. he appeared to publicly announce the resignations to the Government, once communicated to the King, before traveling to Castelló to visit, with the Valencian president, Ximo Puig, the areas affected by the fire.
This Tuesday, after attending the Zarzuela to accompany the new ministers to their oath of office, he will preside over the ordinary meeting of the renewed Council of Ministers. And tomorrow he will start his trip to China, with stops in Hainan and Beijing, from where he will return next Saturday, in time not to miss the announcement of Yolanda Díaz’s electoral candidacy on Sunday, even if it is in the distance.
