Pedro Sánchez is already president of the Government with full powers. And it is thanks to a complex network of alliances that is supported, mainly, by the amnesty for those involved in the process and a series of economic concessions that are noticeable, above all, in the Basque Country and Catalonia.. Having achieved the objective, the socialist leader now has to start governing, which was his main objective, as he demonstrated when he said that, after the result of 23-J, “we must make a virtue of necessity.”. And he will have to do it walking on the wire of the pacts that support his unstable majority, but also with the weight on the shoulders of a percentage of the socialist electorate that does not fully understand this policy of alliances..

In Metroscopia they have quantified the percentage of PSOE voters who reject Pedro Sánchez's roadmap as head of the party. It was outlined by Andrés Medina, the general director of the demoscopic house, at the presentation of Esteban Hernández's latest essay, The Heart of the Present (Círculo de Tiza), last Tuesday at the Ateneo de Madrid. The “water table” of discontent is around a third of voters, a not inconsiderable figure, but which varies depending on the question asked.. “We always get a latent third of socialist voters who are dissatisfied,” explains Medina, who also reveals that this percentage coincides with that of socialist voters who disapprove of Sánchez's management at the head of the party..

That third of the electorate that expresses its discomfort in the polls is one of the stress tests that Sánchez must face internally in the coming months. The other, as Medina sees it, has to do with PSOE voters who are neither from Catalonia, nor from the Basque Country, nor from Navarra, and who see how in those territories they receive a series of “counterparts” for the agreements that The socialist leader has closed to be re-elected president.

This double aspect between the identity and the material also has different demoscopic expressions. And it has been detected by the company directed by Andrés Medina, which has studies that indicate that only 49% of PSOE voters are in favor of general forgiveness for those involved in the process.. At the same time, the percentage of approval of the pact with ERC only reaches 32%, which confirms a thesis that is used even within the party of the fist and the rose: economic transfers generate more wear and tear than identity transfers.. And the pact with the Republicans includes the management of the Rodalies and a reduction of the Catalan debt with the State of 15,000 million that must have repercussions on the rest of the regions, but it is not yet clear how it will be articulated..

The question is what electoral translation this discontent may have.. Medina considers it “absurd” to make vote estimates at this point in the legislature, with the elections still in memory and the Government still to be finalized.. But the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), which acts as the Catalan CIS, suggests that there is not much wear and tear. It is true that the CIS did detect a fall in the PSOE in its last barometer, but the public body of the Generalitat, in its third wave of the year, grants an overwhelming victory to Salvador Illa's PSC, with between 39 and 45 seats in the Parliament. compared to the 33 he has now. And this good data for the Catalan socialists coincides with a meager support for the amnesty among their voters, only 49%..

“That uncomfortable socialist third was already there before the May elections,” recalls Andrés Medina, who admits that this discontent among the PSOE electorate was compatible with the result of 23-J that has allowed Sánchez to repeat in Moncloa. But in the socialist headquarters they have already sounded the alarm to prevent this discomfort from translating into abstention or electoral infidelity.. It must be taken into account that there will be European elections on June 9, and there the president will be examined again, just as in the Basque and Galician elections that are scheduled for the first half of the year.. The icing on the cake will be the Catalans, which will be, at the latest, in February 2025.

The pedagogy plan

To better navigate this journey, in Ferraz they have devised a plan that involves involving all the resources of the PSOE to explain the amnesty to its voters.. Socialist sources allude to the “capillarity” of the party, with thousands of headquarters and town houses spread across the country, and also thousands of councilors that the socialist leadership intends to use as means of transmitting its message.. In Ferraz they are aware that the amnesty also generates doubts among their local cadres, especially far from Catalonia and the Basque Country, but the plan contemplates the involvement of the party from Moncloa to the city councils, passing through leaders such as José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who He is already carrying out that work of apostolate.

The intention is to recover a very common practice until the times of Rodríguez Zapatero, when socialist senators and deputies embarked on routes through their provinces and visited each town to explain laws and outline the General State Budgets (PGE).. “This is very PSOE, always,” explains a socialist leader who has had responsibilities in Ferraz and is now in local politics.. Another socialist source remembers how at that time it was common for each law approved by the government to be a reason for debate in local groups..