The recount of the votes on election night was not only experienced with disappointment in Genoa. In a sector of the PSOE, the anti-sanchistas, the taste was bittersweet when it was confirmed that Pedro Sánchez did not win the elections, but he improved in data and could choose to repeat in Moncloa with greater dependence on the separatists than four years ago. As militants, many of them historical, they will always celebrate a victory of their initials, but on this occasion, as confirmed to El Confidencial, “we needed a catharsis to re-found the party.”. “With these results, no one can dispute his leadership,” laments a historic socialist who recalls that last year the forty years of Felipe González's victory in 1982 were commemorated and “there is nothing left” of that party. “It is the end of Suresnes”, he says, while acknowledging that Sánchez is the one who has “absolute control” of “this” PSOE which, in his opinion, is far from its origins. “Sánchez is in charge of a block, not of the PSOE”, explains another former socialist leader, who shows that “the majorities, the autonomy of the acronyms, to govern without ties” have been renounced in relation to the fact that Sánchez is “euphoric”, since with his partners he will be able to maintain power with a PSOE in 121 seats.

The territorial leaders who have declared themselves in recent years openly opposed to the pacts with Catalan separatists and Bildu remain silent. The only one who has maintained power, Emiliano García-Page, was very prudent when referring to the future in the investiture of the other survivor, the Asturian Adrián Barbón. The Castilian-Manchego appealed to the understanding between the PP and PSOE in the great State pacts, aware that it is a toast to the sun. He made it clear that there will be no defecting deputies who facilitate an investiture of Albero Núñez Feijóo. The popular leader must abandon all hope of that path.

The Aragonese Javier Lambán or Ximo Puig, who blamed the Moncloa agreements for their defeat on 28-M, are missing. Both know that there will be a relay in their federations in the coming months and in the case of the former he is sitting down. Lambán has conveyed in private conversations that he would give his votes to make Jorge Azcón president in Aragon and free him from dependence on Vox, but he no longer commands. 23-J has mowed down any option of resistance to Sánchez.

The critics of the party had been preparing the post-Sanchism since the debacle of the regional and municipal. They knew it would be difficult because the PSC, the strongest federation, as has been shown in the parliamentary elections, was going to support Sánchez if he had wanted to continue at the head of the party, even not adding to repeat as president. Sánchez had also designed a parliamentary group to suit him, fighting with the barons to place like-minded. In Aragon the boycott of the “dolphin” by Felipe González, Ignacio Urquizu was very clear.

There were underground contacts, although plans were designed in parallel based on the interests of each one. The party was even divided between the “left” PSOE represented by the sector of Adriana Lastra y Barbón, who was thinking of making the leap, according to Asturian PSOE sources, and those of the “right” who placed Page or Lambán. Yes, there was a quorum in which, no matter how heavy the defeat, the slogan was to let Sánchez take the first step. In 2016 they made mistakes, they insisted, to convert the president into a “martyr” and this time they would not rush. “If we have to kill him seven times, we will do it,” he came to slip from the territories where they assumed that Sánchez would fight. In his team they estimated the seats at 110 to be able to elaborate a resilience story. everything is past. Also the manager who had prepared. Whoever led the party when the abstention to let the PP govern, Javier Fernández, had also been contacted. In October there would be an extraordinary congress to elect the new leader and “repeal” sanchismo.

Some baron was already running for society. The priests like Alfonso Guerra spoke in public without embarrassment, as they had been doing for years in private. The operation was underway, but it was cut short. The verdict of the polls, as explained by a member of the PSOE, is that they do not penalize the agreements with Bildu or ERC and anticipates that Sánchez will reissue them with Puigdemont and there will be a legislature. In the negotiations with the fugitive, curves within socialism are expected where there will be gnashing of teeth and some statements of public rejection of the traditional detractors of these agreements and “little more”.

On the other side they downplay these movements. A minister related to the president is “surprised” by the “ignorance” that many of his colleagues have of what “the party is today”. Regarding the conspiracies to oust Sánchez prior to 23-J, he summarizes: “Holy Innocence, ora pro nobis”.

The month of July will end with highs of 40 degrees (°C) in the south, while the month of August will arrive with temperatures higher than normal for this time of year in the first fortnight, especially in a good part of the center, south of the peninsula and in the Canary Islands, according to the prediction of the spokesman for the State Meteorological Agency (AEMET), Rubén del Campo.

In this way, the spokesman specified that August will be a month with little rain, just like July 2023, in which, although “very intense” storms have occurred locally, it could be described as a month “drier than usual”. usual”.

Specifically, in its first 25 days, 8 liters per square meter have been collected in the whole of Spain, less than half of what falls in a normal month of July, which is 17 liters per square meter.. For this reason, Del Campo has indicated that “with great probability”, July will end below the figure, being a month “drier and warmer than normal”.

On this Friday, he explained that the atmosphere will be warm in the south of the peninsula, where thermometers will reach maximums of 38 to 40 °C in the Guadalquivir Valley. In addition, temperatures will exceed 35 °C in the east, center and south of the peninsula, as well as in parts of Mallorca and cities such as Zaragoza, Murcia, Jaén, Córdoba or Seville, which will be around 38 and 40 °C.. Already 40 °C can be exceeded locally in the Guadalquivir Valley and nearby areas of the province of Jaén.

On Saturday temperatures will continue to rise in the Mediterranean area, although on Sunday there will be a temperature drop in the far north and in the Mediterranean. However, temperatures similar to those of Saturday are expected in the center and south of the peninsula.

The warmest temperatures on Sunday, once again, will be recorded in the Guadalquivir Valley, where they will exceed 40 °C. In addition, the early morning will be very warm and it will not drop below 25ºC on the Mediterranean coast, so torrid nights are expected in highly populated cities such as Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca or Valencia..

In the case of the Canary Islands, the trade wind regime will predominate this weekend, winds that will blow “strongly” in exposed areas and will drag clouds to the north of the most mountainous islands. The temperatures will tend to rise in the archipelago during Sunday and the first days of next week, where they will oscillate between 30 and 32 °C in large areas and will exceed 34 °C in the south of Gran Canaria.

As for rainfall, it will be “scarce” during the weekend, although there will be “abundant” cloudiness and some “weak” rains on the Cantabrian coast. In addition, in the afternoon evolution clouds may form in eastern mountain areas, with possible storms in general isolated in the Pyrenees and around the Iberian System..

Next week, the spokesman has detailed that it will be similar to the current one, that is, with stable weather and skies in general with little cloudiness, although they may be somewhat more cloudy in the extreme north, with light rainfall, especially on the Cantabrian coast.. There may also be isolated storms in eastern mountain areas.

Starting Wednesday, rising temperatures

In more detail, temperatures will rise slightly on Monday and Tuesday, and will do so “clearly” on Wednesday.

However, he has warned that, in the northern third, the environment will be cooler, where maximum temperatures will be around 25 to 28 °C in coastal areas of the Cantabrian Sea..

In the rest, 35 °C will be widely exceeded and on Wednesday 38 °C will be exceeded quite extensively in a large part of the center and south of the peninsula. In this way, the torrid nights will continue in many locations on the Mediterranean coast and it is not ruled out that in the interior of the southern half there will also be torrid nights in some points.

On Thursday and Friday, although he has qualified that “there is still uncertainty”, there could be a drop in temperatures, which would leave cool weather for the season in the north of the country, although the hot environment would continue in the south, but “without extremes”. However, the heat could pick up in general for next weekend.

Perhaps you remember those fateful years at the beginning of the 2nd decade of this 21st century, when Zapatero was struck down by the euro crisis that he denied. He received calls from Obama to meet the demands of the markets and cuts to the welfare state began. The most distinctive note in the European political space was undoubtedly the strength of the German coalition between Merkel and the SPD, which was extended several times, gaining a solid majority to speak loud and clear in Brussels.. This solid consensus allowed to bias the paths of the diagnosis and prescription of the crisis, and obviously sweep home.

The result of the general elections: victory of the majority parties at the cost of everything else, puts on a platter the possibility of a similar national consensus. But it will not be like that because the losing force, the PSOE, prefers to reissue the Frankenstein coalition with parties that have in their sights the alteration of the constitutional framework through the back door. For certain prices: binding referendums on autonomy, independence and others, which, according to the law, cannot be paid.

In a show of gratitude to the EU, which is saving our recovery thanks to the assistance of the Recovery Fund and the ECB, an anti-constitutional vaudeville is being prepared that violates its basic spirit: convergence in the rigor of the rule of law. Seldom can it be repeated that at the European table where almost everything that really matters in the long term is negotiated, what counts is national agreement. Undoubtedly, a change of perspective in the histrionics of homeland politics, outward and forward from it, requires a national volition that the acting president despises, despite being the only legible mandate of the electoral result.. And this happens at a particularly critical moment: for what is negotiated and for what we have.

In Europe, this semester under the Spanish presidency, the reform of the Stability and Growth Pact of 2010 is being debated, that fiscal framework by which the containment of debt and fiscal deficits was constitutionally committed. The fact that it was clumsily designed, applying the same medicine to everyone, regardless of the particular situation of each country, and without reference to the impact on the whole, has already revealed the suboptimal growth trajectory and a veiled structural tendency of fragmentation the last five years for the intervention of the ECB. It was from then on that the trend in European growth coupled with the US broke, and when the European division became necrotic..

The current negotiation will correct the form and the times to execute the irrescindible economic-financial discipline, the speed of adjustment of the structural deficits. The possibility of introducing mechanisms that give body to “strategic autonomy” by financing the defense of joint European interests, that is, a Eurobond, is always on the horizon.. He already did it last year on the occasion of Ukraine. It is not a redoubt of exemption from responsibilities, but a commitment of other more iron. In addition to many other things: the consummation of the monetary union, the door to geopolitics to compete with the dollar, and the witness of a European political will. That little spark of illusion… It won't happen.

The political blockade that is coming in the country that modulates the agenda of the EU semester, cannot be, therefore, more alien to the vicissitudes of the European moment that we are going through. Each European nation vibrates hot in its own way with the legacy of several decades of globalization and the traumatic effect it had on its industrial fabric, a cardinal euro crisis with its insufficient diagnosis and prescription, and two others, pandemic and inflationary.. While, in the rest of Europe, the sense of lack of protection in times of polycrisis has coagulated expressions of nationalist identity, in our case, the reissue of the government coalition pact subordinates the nation to centrifugal nationalist particularisms. In essence they are the same gibberish..

let's say it clearly. The Gordian knot of the concertation in Spain involves the amputation of nationalist identity elements that skew the majority parliamentary forces to extremes. Tanto monta, tanto da. It is this same nationalist impulse, a kind of religion in a different format, which aborts a process of concertation between a secular right and a functional social democracy.. National-Catholicism, communism and the identity left, the one that makes rights as sweets are distributed (yes, distractions), are not included in this film. The chimera of his approach at this juncture does not diminish his opportunity one iota. It is not just about strengthening the voice at the table of that European Council, where the tomato is cut, based on consultation. It is about betting on an identity vocation, useful for purpose in this s. XXI, which is the European.

In political terms, it corresponds to transcending an intergovernmental governance model that would be complemented by a federal estate, latent in the PEC negotiations.. When the European moment requires the maximum agreement, that door to geopolitics that is the eurobond, Sánchez is busy disconcerting, in the implosion of his nation through the back door, without lights and stenographers, for the benefit of inventory. Wow, what a photo!

Still stuck for 15 years in the same per capita income, asking for State policies from the concertation is asking for pears from the elm tree. Worse still is formally. The institutional tightrope walking and the veiled bankruptcy of the Rule of Law that is coming, satisfying the unconstitutional price of the reissue of alliances, believes that it is not Europe's business. It does not know Europe as a legal architecture, as a process of convergence in States of law in strictness of law. And his capacity for guardianship. What a show. to time.

The drought has become a recurring theme in citizens' conversations, despite the fact that the candidates in the last general elections tiptoed over a growing problem. In Andalusia they know it well. Beyond the figures that the headlines constantly illustrate, there are other minor data that help explain the complicated situation that many Andalusians are suffering.. Numbers that show the severity of a lack of precipitation that has already led several towns to surrender to their beliefs and take the saints out into the streets to invoke the rain.

100 municipalities

More than a hundred of the 785 municipalities in the Andalusian region currently have some type of water saving measure. From the most severe, which include power cuts, to more lax ones, such as reducing the pressure of beach showers. These more than 100 localities represent approximately 2.5% of those that the community has.

8.78%

This is the percentage of the capacity that the La Viñuela reservoir currently has, the largest in Malaga and which supplies a large part of the La Axarquía region, an area in whose economy fruit and vegetable crops have a great weight. The 14.43 cubic hectometres that are dammed represent a historical minimum and experts do not rule out that it may dry up or that the water may not be suitable for consumption as the level falls.

2,000,000 wages

Jaen olive growers have stopped entering more than 1,000 million euros in the 2022-2023 campaign due to the drop in production associated with the lack of rain. A circumstance that led to the loss of two million wages, which translates into 150 million euros less received by the 3,500 people who make up the workforce of the Jaén olive industry, according to reports from the Agri-food Cooperatives of the province and the CCOO unions. and UGT.

What is worrying is that these organizations affirm that this situation will be repeated in the next campaign, in which they predict that another 40% of employment will be lost and the province will be, for the second time in a row, below 200,000 tons of olive oil produced.. The 44.6 degrees that were registered on July 10 in Loja (Granada) are proof of the severe heat wave that hit the southern half of the country, and that they were three less than those registered in the summer of 2021 in the Cordoba municipality of Montoro. But there is a piece of information that, despite being lower, may be more representative of the current situation. They are the 34.1 degrees that were registered in Malaga at dawn on July 20.

It was something that had not happened since there were records —1942— and at that time, according to the records, only 30 degrees have been exceeded eight times. All of them from 2010 to the present.

6 hours a week

In Andalusia there are twenty municipalities with water cuts and Casabermeja (Málaga) is one of the most affected. They have had supply restrictions for two months, although they have worsened in recent times due to the lack of rain that the province has been dragging for months. In rural areas, they only receive water for about six hours a week; while in the urbanizations it is five and a half hours a day: from 8:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.. In local places like Los Mellizos and Arroyo Carniceros there are cuts every other day.

27 locations

Are the Andalusian municipalities without drinking water today. Many of them are located in the Valle de los Pedroches and the Guadiato Region, both in Córdoba.. The problem is that the reservoir from which they are supplied —La Colada— has reduced its capacity so much that the water it still has is not suitable for consumption..

6,776 million euros

Despite the severe drought, which notably affects production, exports have not suffered as much and Andalusia accounted for 22.7% of national sales abroad of agri-food products during the first five months of the year. Billing was 6,776 million in this sector.

The affectation of the lack of water to foreign trade materialized in the 3% that exports were reduced with respect to the same period last year.

Fountain of life. Liquid object of desire that has triggered conflicts of all kinds throughout history.

His generous presence augurs wealth and fertility; its scarcity, ruin and death.

July. Public pool. The watery gurgling of a shower reveals that it has been left running and the water is painfully lost through the drain. From having it at our whim in the inconsequentiality of domestic habits, we have mistreated, squandered and undervalued it..

Do not fear, I have not brought Greta Thunberg's protest microphone to our lilies today, although seeing the dull, dry and arid yellow that covers our fields, it is worth remembering that we must take care of an increasingly scarce resource. Our lives are in it.

Actually, what I want is to take you on a relaxing getaway after this post-election week of heart attack, we deserve it. A getaway in which water will be our driving vehicle through an Andalusia of evocative, sensual and historical baths. Baths that keep within their walls the echoes of the conversations of those Andalusians who sought to escape the daily grind under the protection of a therapeutic hamman.

Our Andalusian ancestors were not the first to indulge in the pleasure of a relaxing bath. It is necessary to look for its precedent in the Roman civilization, a town that was distracted from hygiene until the knowledge of the benefits of the daily bath via Helena.

And of those hot springs, these baths.

That excellent custom of daily hygiene did not fall on deaf ears and the Muslims adopted it and adapted it to their own constructive, but also sociological characteristics.. Not only did these spaces become places where the body was removed, they also fostered moments for social relations, for confidentiality, gossip or simply to indulge in a moment of escape, in addition to the intrinsic spiritual function of the bath as an act of purification..

Andalusia was prolific in the construction of these daily paradises. Chronicles with high percentages of legend, speak of more than 300 baths in the Caliphate Córdoba. They must have been much less, although many more than have been preserved to this day.. More than twenty came to have Nasrid Granada.

Through the beautiful Carrera del Darro we arrive at El Bañuelo, the oldest and best preserved baths of those that are still preserved in the capital of Granada. Also known as Baños del Nogal or Baños de los Axares, they were located in the Axares neighborhood, with a reputation as a healthy place due to its fortunate orientation that allowed it to enjoy the sun and the cool breeze of the Darro. The image that visually defines these baths built in the 11th century by the Zirid king Badis (although other investigations push the date back to the 12th century) is the spectacular brick vault in which skylights open in the shape of eight-pointed stars.. This vault covers the bayt al-wastani room or room of warm water, the largest and most popular in the complex as it is the place preferred by users.

The starry oculi communicated the room with the outside, minimized steam condensation and let in just enough natural light to create an intimate and relaxed atmosphere.. After the Christian conquest in 1492, the splendor of the baths declined until they practically disappeared with the expulsion of the Moors.. Some would survive by being converted to other uses. In the case of El Bañuelo as a public laundry.

We do not change the century, the XI, but we do change the city to go to Jaén. There, in the basement of the Villardompardo Palace, we find what are possibly the largest Arab baths that we can find in Spain.. Its 450 square meters of extension are divided between the different rooms that make it up and that follow the base structure: lobby and rooms with cold, warm and hot water.. Squares and rectangles for the plants, semicircles for the vaults, octagonal stars as skylights. geometry of well-being.

After the conquest of the city by Fernando III in 1246, the baths continued with their hygienic, social and spiritual function until in the 14th and 15th centuries the Christians decided to use them as tanneries, workshops dedicated to tanning animal skins.. Its concealment as the foundation base of the Renaissance palace did not prevent its happy discovery in 1913 and its cataloging as a National Monument in 1931.. Walking through its rooms through the perfection of its brick arcades becomes a truly regenerative sensory experience..

Regeneration, therapy, peace, calm. This is how al-Hakam II must have felt in the baths of the Alcázar Califal de Córdoba, a mirror of the refinement achieved by the Umayyad court. Marbles, wall paintings, massage sessions, shaving and hair styling. After this, any gift voucher will seem to them peccata minuta.

The royal baths were for the exclusive use of the monarch and his family, as well as serving as a meeting place with the political authorities.. A council of ministers with towels around their waists.

The baths of the Almohad Alcazar of Jerez de la Frontera must have had the same regal character. With spectacular roofs, the Jerez baths maintained their original function until the 15th century, when their use was prohibited and they were converted into a church..

Almohades are also the bathrooms discovered in the remodeling works of the Bar Giralda in 2021. Eight hundred years hidden from the eyes of the Sevillians who today contemplate in amazement the extraordinary original pictorial decoration that covers its ceilings and makes them an exceptional find..

The baths of the Alcazaba de Almería, those of Baza, those of Ronda, Andalusia is dotted with these hedonistic temples.

The regenerating steam, the healing light, the fragrances of a sensual and stimulating Mediterranean. Everything at the service of quiet chat, intimate confidence, informal negotiation.

And the water.

Sacred liquid crystal.

Japan has something that fascinates us, perhaps due to the cultural differences that exist between our country and the country of the rising sun. But something that undoubtedly unites us is that, both there and here, we are passionate about good food and curious about new things..

Japanese gastronomy is well known and valued, especially sushi, which can be enjoyed in almost any city in the world.. Specifically in Madrid, Japanese restaurants are among the most in demand (along with Italian, Mexican or Peruvian), and it is a common choice among home delivery orders..

There are even many restaurants that, without being Japanese, have Japanese dishes on their menu.. At ABYA, for example, you can have the Japanese salad with Wagyu or the red tuna pizzita-sashimi with wasabi vinaigrette. In Amazónico, from Grupo Paraguas, they have a Japanese bar with different types of sushi, sashimi, niguiris and uramakis.

Today I want to take a tour of some of the best Japanese restaurants in the capital, with a special mention of MIHO, one of my latest discoveries..

Japanese in Madrid

99 Sushi Bar is one of the most recognized and successful in the capital. With four stores in Madrid (the one in the NH Eurobuilding Hotel being especially recommended), they also have stores in other cities such as Barcelona, Bilbao, Marbella, Rabat, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.. Among its dishes, the wild boar gyozas, the tiger prawn tempura or the tuna tartare stand out.

Another restaurant that stands out for the quality of the raw material, and for the elegance of its preparations, is Kabuki.. Its cuisine is a meeting point between Japanese and Mediterranean cultures, highlighting the eel or sea urchin sushi.

At Ikigai, chef Yong Wu creates signature cuisine, a fusion of traditional Japanese cuisine with Spanish and French nuances.. It is worth noting dishes such as the bull tartare with sea urchin and truffle or its niguiris, especially the viceroy with Oscietra caviar.

Ricardo Sanz is a benchmark in the capital. He was a pioneer in bringing Japanese cuisine to our country, and his group has already accumulated 2 Michelin stars and 5 Repsol suns. In Madrid, it has the Ricardo Sanz Wellington on Velázquez street and the Kyoshi, in the Double Tree by Hilton Hotel. Among its dishes, the marrow gunkan or the quail and truffle fried egg nigiri.

A different model: the MIHO restaurant

MIHO Sushi was born in Italy in 2016, specifically in Tavernerio, near Como. This was the first of the 11 restaurants that the group currently has.. After its success in Italy, the group decided to open, a few months ago, its first establishment in Madrid.

MIHO rescues the concept of all you can eat (or unlimited food), but in a different way. First of all, for the quality of the product. The choice of your suppliers is key to ensure your customers the best possible raw material and maximum freshness, especially in the case of raw fish.

All its suppliers are qualified with sustainable fishing certificates, and all the fish served in the restaurant bears the Friends of the Sea seal, which certifies its commitment to the environment..

In addition, it has been recognized as a quality restaurant by Q-eat, the application that evaluates the traceability of the product. The Q-eat project was born to make it easier for consumers to choose the right restaurant, especially when they want to enjoy raw fish, tuna or salmon.. MIHO has also been listed in Gambero Rosso's sushi guide.

dishes and menus

The presentation of the dishes is another of the aspects that differentiate it. At MIHO, great care is taken with the aesthetics of the more than 200 dishes on the menu, trying to offer an experience that is not only tasteful, but also visual..

Regarding the price, they offer a very cheap menu, which is served at the table and allows you to repeat as many times as you want..

On my last visit I chose, among the first courses, some grilled chicken gyozas, some hosomaki nest, ebi (or prawns) in tempura, a mixed poke and a Cantonese rice. Between the seconds, I tried the roast duck and the chicken with almonds. For dessert, the cheesecake tart and a pistachio ice cream.

MIHO's dishes, interpreted by Coco Calvoz

To finish, I want to refer to a person with whom I have already collaborated on other occasions. Coco Calvoz, an Art and Design student in the United States, has had the detail of drawing some of the dishes from the MIHO restaurant to accompany this article..

Many of the inventions crucial to progress, from the wheel to quantum computing, were designed to go faster.. Holidays are also an invention of speed. We live so fast that we had to invent them and stop from time to time to take it all in. But few stoppages are as necessary as this summer after the last political cycle, which has been more like a cyclone. The things that, as a star candidate, in a week have made Feijóo have the face of a former president in pectore will pass quickly. The PP has gone from assuming that it won the elections by far to losing a legislature.

Hence, of all those who will enjoy a break these days to assimilate what happened, surely those who need it the most are all those ministers whom Feijóo is no longer going to name. They will never doubt who would have been chosen. And they not only have to assimilate an electoral result, they also have to rest for the four years they have not lived with which they had been fantasizing for months.

Madrid was full of future ministers for months. Since the PP won the 28-M and Sánchez brought forward the elections, in the gossip of the Madrid right there were more ministries than canapés. Some were even getting used to the idea that they would have to settle for a secretary of state.. During the electoral campaign there were dinners in which four or five future Ministers of Economy could be counted. No one dared to plan a boat vacation this summer or go up the mountain a lot to avoid running out of coverage. Everyone was waiting for Feijóo's call that will no longer take place.

What will the holidays of the frustrated ministers be like? The advantage of the electoral disappointment is that they can safely hang out of office, as recommended by experts in mindfulness. Now they will be able to disconnect and even run out of coverage. they need it more than anyone. It is not easy to suddenly assimilate the condition of a former future minister. Although what a burden those who wanted to be ministers with Feijóo are removed from their shoulders, but did not want to enter a government with Vox. What they did not imagine is that without Vox, neither. Or not, at the moment.

In less than a decade, Spain has gone from ending bipartisanship to trying to return to it in fits and starts.. And as it happens with puzzles that are handled too much, this bipartisanship is missing pieces and no longer knows how to marry the new majorities. Hence, since we do not know how long the blockade will last, these vacations are also very much needed by the poor acting government ministers who expected, even though they do not admit it, a change of life after the elections. Now they are in the limbo of the blockade, from which nobody knows when we will leave or where. And so there is no way to be a former minister at once, which is something highly valued depending on which board of directors.

The multiple advisers of the ministerial cabinets will rest more calmly than for each survey that came out in the campaign they sent a curriculum. The blockade that came out of the polls serves as a vital extension in their search for work, although the sum of impossible majorities enchants them in an unpredictable temporality. They will not have it easy to explain to the landlord that everything depends on Junts.

The new political cycle after the 23-J elections will be full of uncertainties. So this is going to be a cruciform holiday. When they return, they will have to choose between limbo and chaos, or maybe both at the same time. But precisely for this reason it will be necessary to take a breath, if possible at the seashore. What better time than the holidays to do puzzles.

The recount of the CERA vote, that of Spaniards residing abroad, has given a little joy to the Popular Party in a bitter week for those of Feijóo. The popular ones win one more seat in Madrid, which the socialists lose, who will now need the positive vote of Junts —and not the abstention— to ensure that Pedro Sánchez is invested again as president of the Government.

But if there are two protagonists in the flesh of this change, they are the socialist Javier Rodríguez Palacios and the popular Carlos García Adanero. The first, because he loses a seat that he caressed with the tips of his fingers, and the second, because he wins a seat that he has already occupied in this legislature (which began in UPN and ended in the Mixed Group) and will continue to be a protagonist in Congress. , where he is one of the deputies who has captured the most spotlights with his interventions against the Government.

Two 'bounced' from 28-M

The socialist Javier Rodríguez Palacios was mayor of Alcalá de Henares, the third largest city in the Community, until the municipal elections on May 28 took away his baton to give it to the popular Judith Piquet. Even so, he was optimistic about keeping it on his Twitter account.

✅As deputy 11 of the @PSOE for Madrid and on the CERA Vote:
👉🏻 Politically: It is not “only” 1748 votes. Convinced that CERA will be good for @PSOE and for Spain.
➡️Personally: Happiness is in family, friends and convictions 🌹🇪🇸 and I'm fine in all of them
I open 🧵👇🏻

—Javier R.. Palacios (@javiRpalacios) July 26, 2023

Rodríguez Palacios is an agricultural engineer, and after working in Brussels, he joined the team of Minister Elena Espinosa as Zapatero's first executive. In 2007, he was elected councilor for the first time in the Alcalá de Henares town hall, where he took over the mayoralty after the 2015 municipal elections and remained eight years as the town's first mayor.

Adanero, for his part, is one of the best-known deputies in Congress, where he has become a protagonist in the last legislature for his harsh speeches against Pedro Sánchez and against the Basque nationalist parties, especially EH Bildu. Born in Talavera de la Reina, he has carried out all his political activity in Navarra, where he studied Law. He joined UPN at the age of 19, where he developed his entire career, beginning in the Barañáin City Council, in a few years in which his colleagues were assassinated by the terrorist group ETA. From there he went to the Navarrese Parliament, until in 2019 he was elected to represent Navarra Suma (a coalition of PP, UPN and Ciudadanos) in the Congress of Deputies.

His negative vote on the labor reform, together with that of his partner Sergio Sayas and against the guidelines of his party, led to both being suspended from militancy and later leaving the foralista formation and being accused of transfugismo. After his departure from UPN, Adanero was chosen to head the PP lists in the Pamplona City Council on 28-M, elections in which the popular won two councilors. Later, he entered the PP list for Madrid for Congress as number 15, which will finally allow him to narrowly return to the Upper House.

The foreign vote complicates the options of Pedro Sánchez to assemble a new Government with the majority of the investiture. The Madrid recount has ended up giving the PP 16th seat at the expense of the PSOE 11th, which leaves the two blocks at 171 seats and forces the current president to convince Junts to vote in the affirmative to continue in Moncloa. Until now, it only needed abstention, but the 233,688 votes that have come from the embassies have ended up further adjusting the result of 23-J.

After almost three hours of counting, the PP has managed to recover the gap of 1,749 votes with which the election night ended. The advantage of the popular has allowed the overturn. The seat is for Carlos García-Adanero, a former UPN deputy who went to the PP after the controversy over the labor reform. In the Central Electoral Board they will not have official data until Monday.

It is common for the CERA vote to behave in a similar way to the general result. In Madrid, the PP won on 23-J with 40.51% of the votes compared to 27.88% for the PSOE. And so it has been, the popular ones have prevailed with enough margin to snatch the eleventh seat from the socialists. The recount lasted throughout the day and, in fact, began around 8:00 p.m. on Friday, since first the letters with the ballots must be sorted in different ballot boxes in a job that was done in some rooms in the Casa de Field attended by numerous representatives of the parties, as occurs on election night.

Participation has risen to 10.04% throughout the country of the 2.3 million Spanish residents abroad, almost 4 points more than in the last general ones, those of November 2019. This is so after the system of voting requested was eliminated, which made it difficult for Spaniards living outside the country to participate as they had to actively request suffrage. Since this system came into force, participation began to drop, reaching its floor in 2011 with 4.59%.

🚨Poll boxes open, we begin to count the CERA of Madrid🚨 pic.twitter.com/PkPqP2hVGe

—R. Ricardo Rosas Romera (@r_romera) July 28, 2023

The rest of the provinces

The other provinces where there were more possibilities of change in the last seat have been resolved throughout the day. The most relevant were Girona, Tarragona and Cantabria. The case of the Catalan provinces is striking, since the last seat of Junts was in dispute for both the PP and the PSOE, but in the middle of the afternoon it was the nationalist formation that confirmed to Europa Press that it retained both seats.

The popular ones stayed closer in Girona, only 363 ballots from the neoconvergents. The difficulty here was that Carles Puigdemont's party is the third force, with 47,234 votes, while the PP is the fifth most voted option, with 31,042. In Tarragona it is the PSC who can scratch a seat from Junts and is 1,298 votes away. The Socialists achieved 120,428 compared to 40,593, that is, for each independence vote there are 3 votes for the party of the fist and the rose. Although the Socialists have prevailed in the CERA vote, it has not been enough to turn the tables and reinforce the majority of Pedro Sánchez to the detriment of precisely the party on which his investiture ultimately depends.

In Cantabria, the relevance for the government formation process was less, since the PP was 428 votes away from taking Vox's seat, so the movement was within the right-wing bloc. In any case, the popular, who were second force, did not achieve enough advantage to steal a seat from those of Santiago Abascal.

The rest of the dances were more complicated despite the fact that the Socialists ended the election night convinced that a couple of seats could turn in their favor, as was the case in Malaga or Salamanca, but on the same Monday after the polls closed the message of Ferraz was conservative. Sources from the Sánchez Executive also ruled out any possibility on Wednesday.

In Malaga, the popular ones prevailed, although by a margin of less than 100 votes (1,878 of the PP against 1,780 of the PSOE). In Salamanca and Cuenca, the PSOE was the most voted, but did not get enough votes to scratch the PP's votes. A PSOE seat in Albacete was at risk, but the Socialists have won the distribution of the CERA vote in the Castilian-La Mancha province, so there were no modifications. Doubts are still cast in Tenerife, where Sumar could get a deputy at the expense of the PSOE, but there is no data in this regard at this time.