The rushed call for general elections for a date as bizarre as July 23rd creates in itself a magma of completely unnecessary operational problems that disrupt the normal development of an electoral process and the lives of millions of people.. But if, in addition, the call is set just two months after municipal and regional elections, the functional confusion is added to the political one, because it forces the simultaneous development of two extremely complex and delicate processes: on the one hand, the formation of 8,000 municipal governments and 12 new autonomous governments. On the other, conducting a national general election campaign.

Curiously, the one who suffers the problem to a greater degree is the one who finds himself in the most favorable situation on the two tracks where this simultaneous game is played.. The Popular Party has been the undisputed winner of the May 28 elections and the favorite to win those of July 23. But the confluence of the post-election management of the first victory with the national campaign action necessary to secure the second places his political leadership before a devilish set of strategic decisions that get in the way of each other..

The dilemma that Feijóo and his team find themselves these days is unprecedented and is not at all easy to solve.. On the one hand, it has to manage the investitures and formation of governments in several autonomous communities in which it lacks an absolute majority, which forces an extremely uncomfortable process of negotiations with Vox, since the PSOE rejected the proposal to facilitate the Government, with general character, by force with the most votes. Obviously, he rejected it because he expected a scenario like this to be reached, with the PP entangled in half the country in a tangle of deals with the far-right party..

At the same time, it has to deploy a national campaign in which its objective is precisely to achieve a result that allows it to dispense with the presence of Vox in the Government of Spain.. This forces him to carry out a very intense electoral effort, because the purpose of imposing a single government will only become viable after 150 seats —for greater security, 160—. Today the PP has almost guaranteed victory, but it is still far from that goal. With the percentage given by the average of the reliable polls, it would be easily the first party in the country, but it would be destined to share the Government with Vox or risk its life in repeated elections..

Feijóo makes a pilgrimage through Spain and through radio and television studios announcing his firm decision to govern without Vox. But, at the same time, several of its territorial terminals have open negotiation processes with Vox, which has, at least, the capacity to maintain the pulse until the end; even beyond the end if he also dares to force a rerun of elections.

The fact is that each government pact that is closed with Vox or remains open indefinitely in a territory, or weighs down Feijóo's credit in terms of the national government. And, furthermore, it distracts its leading cadres in those territories from the task of promoting the 23-J campaign because they are absorbed in their own negotiation.

Having delivered the Valencian piece so easily has only made things more complicated. Now those of Abascal have seen that the fortress is more fragile than they thought, and they are preparing to sustain the blackmail, raise their prices and block the investiture processes until the last second, knowing that with this they are weakening Feijóo's national campaign ( in its double dimension, political and operational) and perhaps, along the way, they will receive the reward of penetrating another autonomous government. It is enough for Genoa to lose control of one of these negotiations as it did in the Valencian Community, for one of its barons to panic and give in to blackmail, or for someone at the top to hesitate at the prospect of throwing themselves into repeated elections (in which that, it is proven, there is always someone who pays the entire bill, whether they deserve it or not, as Albert Rivera can explain).

After the Valencian cocoa, comes the Extremaduran, which threatens to last until beyond July 23. Without a doubt, that is the shared purpose of the PSOE and Vox. To begin with, the Socialists have taken control of the regional Parliament Board, which means that Blanca Martín Delgado will manage the times of the investiture process from the presidency of the Chamber; and, without a doubt, it will do so in the way that causes the most damage to the electoral campaign of the PP.

Following the provisions of the Extremadura Statute, you now have 15 days to consult with the groups and propose a candidate for the investiture. Unless Vox announces its intention to support the PP candidate in this process, the president of Parliament will be fully entitled to propose Guillermo Fernández Vara as the leader of the force with the most votes on 28-M.

The Statute grants another 15 days between the appointment of the candidate and the investiture session. Thus, it is possible that we will have an investiture session for Fernández Vara around July 15, with the national campaign launched and the two right-wing parties locked in a mutual shoving lawsuit in Extremadura. Vara's investiture would not prosper except in the unlikely event that the PP decided to unilaterally apply its own doctrine and give him abstention; but the stormy investiture process would have completely eaten up the electoral campaign in that region, echoing in the rest of the country, and not precisely in the most favorable terms for Feijóo's strategy.

From there, an eternal process of two months of struggles would begin, which, in turn, would be mixed with the management of the result of the generals and the investiture of a Feijóo, presumably the winner, but in need of complementary support, with which the Extremadura litigation would become part of the negotiation package.

Now imagine that something similar is reproduced in other communities in which the investitures of the PP depend on Vox, such as Murcia and the Balearic Islands.. There they will not have the problem that the PSOE controls the process from the presidency of Parliament, but Vox is in a position to stretch the negotiating entanglement as far as the regulations allow it, to decide at the last moment whether or not to risk charging with the burden of provoking the repetition of the elections.

It is a nice exercise for a strategy master: combine the management of two simultaneous processes, starting in both from a dominant position (in one as a winner, in the other as a favourite); but that, by mutually interfering, they cause harmful short circuits that can lead to a fiasco. With the aggravating circumstance that, in the first movement (the one in Valencia), you have shot yourself in the foot and, what is worse, you have shown your weakness and have given the hand of the game to whoever is at the same time, necessarily, your necessary interlocutor and your most dangerous enemy.

I do not think that Sánchez is going to obtain any electoral advantage from his violent decision to precipitate the dissolution of Parliament, setting an extravagant date and creating a sticky mix between the formation of the autonomous governments and the electoral campaign of the generals.. But, certainly, Feijóo is facing a huge quilombo; and the country (in lowercase) a little closer to sending everyone to hell.