Sánchez, the most difficult yet

Pedro Sánchez's political career has not been easy. The most difficult point in his career, so far, was seven years ago, when, as a result of pressure from the apparatus, he decided to abandon the general secretary of his party and his deputy seat so as not to contravene the voting discipline of the PSOE that he had decided. abstain from the investiture of Mariano Rajoy. Since then, Sánchez's resilience, his determination and ability to navigate different contexts have allowed him to lead the PSOE and govern Spain with various brands in this democratic period.. First president resulting from a motion of censure. First president thanks to a coalition government. Now he wants to break a new milestone again, to be the first president who manages to assemble an alternative majority, without having won the elections..

Sánchez's priority objective is to govern again without an electoral repetition, something that once again tests his political abilities.. Get the yes from ERC and Junts at the same time; the yes of PNV and Bildu at the same time; Giving space to Sumar, and not disparaging the BNG, is top-level political engineering, because it means reconciling the support of a series of conflicting interests and putting them, together, at the service of the governability of Spain.. The second challenge that Sánchez has is that this sum does not take away support at an organic level, in a party that territorially comes out very affected by the May 28 elections and that is waiting for the national matter to be clarified to begin the regional and local dismantling..

It is a fact, there are negotiations between all the political forces that can make Sánchez president. This categorical statement was not evident on the night of July 23, when it was stated that Puigdemont, the key to governability, had more incentives to block the Spanish electoral system by not being part of any of the possible negotiations.. Quite the opposite, the former Catalan president, now an MEP, held a press conference on September 5, letting himself be loved. He exposed his conditions, with the amnesty as a banner and building a story against his true adversary: ERC.

But that press conference had had a previous preparatory. The day before, Sumar leader Yolanda Díaz made a historic visit; She was the first national politician who had gone to visit Puigdemont in Brussels, granting him explicit recognition as a political actor in this legislature.. Little by little, Junts' strategy was softening, at the same time that Sumar spoke without complexes, for the first time, about the amnesty.

From the ranks of the PSOE they have resisted speaking with the same clarity as that of their government partner. There is a large archive of socialist leaders who denied such a possibility when they justified pardons, surely, because no one expected to find themselves in this position.. But Sánchez, since he began to lead the party, has been breaking taboos that for some (his own and others) were going to destroy Spain, one after another.. For example, the impossibility of PSOE and Podemos governing in coalition. It is curious to see some regional and local leaders who denied that possibility, alluding to the great economic and social catastrophe that it would entail, signing coalition pacts with the purple ones when parliamentary arithmetic was not enough for minority governments.. After four years, the economic indicators of the coalition government between PSOE and UP, as well as the social ones, have been a cure of humility for the doomsayers of that vision.

Many of those prophetic voices were heard on the fateful October 1, 2016, in that traumatic Federal Committee that split the party in half.. Coincidence or not, it is the same date that the socialists have chosen to issue a statement of support for Sánchez to form a Government of all the provincial secretaries and former president Zapatero. The preparation of the statement was not a mere procedure. The first drafts began to circulate in mid-September, given the more than foreseeable failure of Feijóo. It was not closed until the last hours of this weekend, with successive versions in which all the terms that directly alluded to the Catalan question were eliminated due to the refusal to join by some federation that was clearly critical of the negotiations with the independentists.. To achieve unanimity, concessions were made to the most critical. However, what is important in my opinion is that a large majority of provincial secretaries, from all over Spanish territory, were willing to sign the version that included allusions to the reunion agenda and the “decisive and courageous” way in which that the Government takes the territorial challenge.

Therefore, of the two objectives that Sánchez had, the most resolved is the internal one.. The organic issue is resolved in the PSOE, because, after the last two elections, the only indisputable leadership in the organization is that of the federal general secretary, with small exceptions that are numerically insignificant.. The internal reading of 23-J is clear, Sánchez has the legitimacy to try to form a Government with the independentists, even with Bildu, which internally has always been tremendously uncomfortable… much more than doing so with the Catalan independentists.

The first objective will be attempted, with the legitimacy of the ballot boxes and the organic. However, in the PSOE they have active plan B, just in case.. The rallies that are being held in Galicia, Andalusia and will multiply throughout Spain during the negotiations. Fundamentally, because in this way we will try to explain what is being done and why.. But also because no one trusts that the sum of so many actors, in the end, will give the expected result.. Because what it is about is channeling into governability those who wanted to overwhelm it without crossing the limits of the law and without any confusing no-yes vote, because the most difficult one is still for Sánchez out of two deputies..