Patxi López, 'ecce homo' of sanchismo

The worst thing about Spanish politics is this drift of vulgarity. Even in devastation or annihilation, talent and competence are appreciated. Decadence can be gloomy when managed by mediocre people. Without excellence, everything is funnier, more bitter. The week has brought us the first ordinary plenary session of the legislature, which has been an exhibition of what awaits us, the decadent, low political level, which has the four caryatids next to the vault of the Hemicycle looking the other way, the poor , from so much embarrassment.

It must be noted, first of all, so that no one thinks that it is exaggerated, that the plenary sessions of Congress are more vulgar when they are seen from the room itself than when they are followed on television, which, even unintentionally, surround everything with a solemnity that does not exist. The very focus of the camera when the speaker is speaking already supposes a manipulation of reality, although it is inevitable.. Because it enlarges the figure and uproots it from the environment that surrounds it. Everything is more vulgar, more elementary, smaller, than what is transmitted.

The only thing missing from the plenary sessions of Congress was the absurdity of simultaneous translations between gentlemen and ladies who only have in common the possibility of speaking in the same language.. Well not even that. But well… Of all this group, the one who can give a name to this era is the PSOE spokesperson, Patxi López, increasingly less political and more caricature. As a colleague of his said years ago, he can boast of having the most brilliant downward political career in Spain.. But his thing, as we say, is to see it in its surroundings, like the other day, with the majority of the Government absent, which made it easier to identify the rest of the fundamental actors..

The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, for example, plays a fundamental role in the coordination of the socialist group. She sets the times and the applause, with the discipline and perseverance of American rugby cheerleaders.. To begin with, his applause is the best in the Hemicycle. No one in the rest of the seats applauds louder than her, so she only has to clap three times, three, which resound thunderously throughout the chamber, for the rest of the socialist deputies to instantly second her..

Whoever pays attention to that detail will see how the minister applauds, how she places her hands, with what teaching, surely directly imported from a Fair booth in Seville. Next to him sits Félix Bolaños, another fundamental character, with a flea-filled smile, which is one of his most characteristic features.. Bolaños and Montero exchange whispers and laughs constantly. They also snort and pout, as if in disgust.. It is interesting to contemplate them with crossed glances towards another of the characters of this legislature, Santos Cerdán, the number two of the PSOE, who does not move a muscle in his face. This man increasingly looks like a Stasi agent.

It is curious how the order that Pedro Sánchez gave him to go and negotiate with Puigdemont in different cities in Europe has affected his personality, with the utmost secrecy, total secrecy, so that nothing would be known.. This Santos Cerdán is so faithful to his master Pedro Sánchez, he has immersed himself so much in his role, that he has come to believe he is a character from the Cold War, as if John le Carré had written the script for him.. And this is how this man's expression has changed… He walks and looks like an agent from East Germany, who were different from those of the KGB, it is worth specifying.

Behind the blue Government bench, right behind President Sánchez, is where our Patxi López sits.. The other day he made a sister-in-law defense of the Amnesty Law that catapulted him to another level. In that chamber there are good and bad deputies, aggressive or inane, great orators and bored with solemnity.. There are all those categories and there is Patxi López. When it is said that he is the representation of the political level of this legislature, ecce homo of sanchismo, it is because no one like him manages to be more transparent when it comes to showing us the impressive frivolity of this PSOE in the face of the amnesty law and the consequences it may have.. He simply doesn't give a damn about everything..

To defend the amnesty he used some delusional arguments, such as hope. The amnesty has the form of hope, he came to say, as if he had been inspired by Carlos Vives. He releases all that on the platform and, as soon as he gets off, the independentists come up to put things in their place.. “This is not about coexistence or forgiveness, because in no case do we renounce independence,” they say, puffed up, knowing they are feared and triumphant.. But Patxi López, like the other socialist deputies, continues doing his thing, adding arguments, increasingly strange, about the excellence of the Amnesty Law.

Like this persistent attempt to present the amnesty as just another pardon, like the thousand or so that Aznar granted when the Vatican requested this gesture to celebrate the arrival of the millennium. I wish we were facing the same thing, a thousand or two thousand pardons for the independentists, because the consequences would not be as disastrous as this amnesty, which establishes, for the future, that, when crimes are committed again to achieve independence, they will not they must be considered as such. “The law does not amnesty people, but events attributed to people,” the independentistas clarify to our López, but he continues with his hope-colored smile..

“Do you know what an amnesty is, Patxi?” Feijóo told him at one point in the debate, in memory of that question that López asked Pedro Sánchez, when both were competing for the general secretary of the PSOE.. “Let's see, Pedro, but do you know what a nation is?”. That is the level and, joining the two questions, we will realize that for these personnel the nation or the amnesty, or any other concept, are nothing more than words at the service of politics, as Zapatero said twenty years ago.. Anyway… Here I am, Patxi López, at the peak of her political decline; the man of sanchismo who serves as the image of the moment. Ecce homo representative like that of Borja, the town of Zaragoza. In both cases, the paradox is fulfilled that a fool becomes famous and triumphs. Well that.