Frankenstein is dead and Feijóo, like Prometheus, is in chains

“The one who created me is dead; and when I die, the memory of me will die forever”, can be read in Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus, the famous work of Mary Shelley. Obviously, not everything has been said about the electoral results, but there is a first piece of evidence. The pacts of the Socialist Party with EH Bildu, ERC and Podemos, which Pérez Rubalcaba baptized as the Frankenstein Government, have not prevented Pedro Sánchez from having options to continue in Moncloa. The monster that Victor Frankenstein created fades into oblivion, just like in Shelley's gothic tale. Time will tell if there is a resurrection.

It cannot be a coincidence, and it is not, that some of the best results obtained by the PSOE have been precisely in Catalonia, the Basque Country and Navarra. In the first case, it has gone from 20% to 34%; in the second, from 19% to 25%, and in the third, the gain has been 2.4 percentage points, up to 27.4%, in a historically highly fragmented community. In other words, in the three territories in which Sánchez's partners operate, which seems to show that going hand in hand with some of the parts of the monster that Víctor Frankenstein built takes less of a toll than was presumed a priori..

Probably, because both in Catalonia and in the Basque Country there has been a political normalization, of course still incomplete, which is not perceived by many citizens of the rest of the State, because both the Popular Party and Vox, and their related media, have been incapable of correctly reading the political and, above all, social change that has occurred in recent years. What Aznar called the fine rain, which soaks without noticing it.

This explains why both parties have fallen into irrelevance in the three territories. In the Basque Country, the PP is the fourth political force (less than half the votes of EH Bildu), in Catalonia it is the fifth (almost a third of the PSC's votes) and in Navarra, the third, with half of votes (16.6%) that he has obtained in the State as a whole. It makes it profitable, yes, in the rest of the State, where the opposite phenomenon occurs, due to the fact that the perception of reality is different. Living in Bilbao or Barcelona is not the same as living in Seville when analyzing the same circumstances: the end of terrorism and the decline of independence.

Rubalcaba spoke for the first time about the “Frankenstein investiture” in July 2016 —seven years have passed— during a round table held at the summer courses of the Complutense University, in El Escorial, and it was then, according to the chronicle of that day of the EFE Agency, when he said that the PSOE could not go “with whoever wants to break Spain”.

ghost referendum

The expression was not only successful, but it was accurate. Barely 15 months later, the independentistas mounted the phantom referendum of 1-O, Catalan (and Spanish) society experienced a level of tension unknown for decades, some leaders were imprisoned and in the end the independence movement broke like never before. The result? The secessionists are currently experiencing an internal civil war for the hegemony of what remains of the process that, paradoxically, has led to an exceptional circumstance. We would have to go back to 1982 to find a lower representation of Catalan nationalists in all their forms in the Congress of Deputies, which indicates that something has happened. Something is happening.

You may think that it is a temporary circumstance and that they will do it again. And it is very probable – there is Azaña's famous premonition – that this will be the case when the correlation of forces for their interests improves.. But there is no doubt that today, and hence the results that the PSOE has obtained in these elections, the wear and tear of agreeing with the independentistas and with EH Bildu, which is also independent, but which today strives to be a management party to compete with the PNV, is limited. Very limited. Today Bildu is as integrated into the political system —despite its past— as any other political force, not to mention the world of Podemos and now Sumar, who yearn to manage public affairs and have put aside the ice ax to assault the Heavens. They are as conventional, with their own ideology, as any other party.

the cause is obvious. Societies change and today what is urgent is neither ETA terrorism nor Catalan independence. The first is over, although more symbolic than real embers remain, and the second is today a chimera, which explains why the constitutionalist vote is concentrated around the PSC, which is the party that has opted the most for dialogue, which resulted in changes to the Penal Code and pardons. Sometimes it is forgotten that the biggest determining factor in voting is the expectation of change or improvement, and to a lesser extent the past, which only helps to revive it..

a strange creature

It is evident, however, that the PP has won, and with ease. But his strategy, as in Mary Shelley's story, has endorsed the creation of a strange creature that he cannot get rid of, as happened to Victor Frankenstein..

Today, precisely, it is its main electoral ballast. His pacts with Vox, not in all territories with the same intensity, have encouraged the abstention party to come out of its lair, which is mostly left-wing, although not only that.. With three million votes, Vox is already a consolidated party that not only competes with it in many constituencies, but also limits its policy of alliances, which forces it to win almost by an absolute majority in order to govern..

The PP, in short, has entered its own political cage, whose bars prevent it from going out in search of partners because the pack includes another member who is not very presentable to its potential allies.. Feijóo is today a kind of Prometheus in chains, like the Greek myth that Shelley explores, surrounded by shackles. A good part of Spanish society, in fact, contrary to what the PP leadership thinks, has not yet normalized a party like Vox, as is the case in most European countries.. Spain is no different. Or seen in another way. If Vox has stopped scaring three million Spaniards, many more are not terrified by EH Bildu or ERC.

One only has to remember what happened to Aznar in 1996, who was able to agree with the PNV and CiU without problems because at that time he did not have a party like Vox as an ally, simply because it did not exist. In those elections, the PP obtained 156 deputies, only 290,000 more votes than the PSOE, and even so it governed. In the following legislature, he even obtained an absolute majority, because there was no one to his right who obtained his best results, precisely, at the moments of greatest political tension.. And it is precisely the strategy of tension that least favors the Popular Party, since it gives wings to its main electoral adversary, which is not the PSOE, although it may seem so, but Vox, with whom it quickly signed after 28-M and running (except in some places) some territorial pacts that are the ones that have brought left-wing abstentionists out of their lethargy.

This was seen well by Pedro Sánchez, who as President of the Government enjoys a privilege that no politician has, the ability to dissolve Congress when he deems it most appropriate for his interests, and that is precisely what he did, with the result already acquaintance.