Canarias lives these days with bated breath. Aware that a penultimate resurrection and re-election of Pedro Sánchez would cool the doors of the ministries, the Canary Islands Coalition and the PP —fellow travelers in the regional government and in a good handful of councils and town halls— hold candles to all the saints so that Alberto Núñez Feijóo's low back pain does not end up causing localized pain in the lower part of the budgetary back or, where appropriate, in the skeletal muscle structure. ethics of the backbone, competence, ministerial and investment —in the Canary-State relations, in short—.

Not only in the institutions governed by the Coalition with the popular ones, they cross their fingers so that the disconcerting end of Feijóo's campaign does not end up taking its toll. The socialists of the archipelago also hold their breath, aware that another government chaired by Sánchez would provide them with a scenario of hot doors in the different offices of the State Administration, and, who knows, perhaps some ministry, secretary of State or hole in some public company, the last train for those evicted from power in the Islands have enormous difficulties to relocate their own. Everyone, without exception, lives for them no matter how good or bad they do this Sunday. There is a party — they whisper with as much conviction as insistence from the socialist ranks —. We are better than what the polls say, the popular confess. Anything can happen —they warn in the Coalition plumbing—. Sumar, an abstract entity in the archipelago, also does his calculations. we can not know. They're not here. The earth has swallowed them, they have disappeared.

A legislature with a cold or hot door in Moncloa and in the ministries draws diametrically opposed scenarios. According to the president of the regional Executive, Fernando Clavijo, what finally happens on July 23 and in the following days or weeks will not affect the regional government. Clavijo pulls from the manual, does not charge against the hypothesis of another cabinet with Sánchez at the helm because institutionally he can but should not —no matter what, no matter what. However, the Coalition leader knows that, in the eyes of his government, in one scenario or another (Sánchez or Feijóo) the day-to-day relations between the two administrations resemble what an egg resembles a chestnut. Nothing to see. Hot or cold door. Highway or secondary road. WhatsApp or burofax. Complicity or bad neighbor. Is not the same. Hence the nerves and held breath. In few territories as in the Islands an electoral call is decontextualized. Campaign and beach agendas collide head-on on a land invaded by tourists or residents who live with their backs turned to polls, low back pain —more or less unexpected, inopportune or spontaneous— and last-minute debates as flat as they are innocuous. A general election in summer only finds a certain parallel in what it was, because of the pandemic, to celebrate a carnival in June. People ended up getting excited, yes, but just enough, timidly, aware that everything has its month; Carnival is February and midsummer doesn't seem like the best time to ask voters to closely follow a campaign that is far from them —from the beach, without a doubt, but above all from the mental decompression that July and August bring with them—. We will have to wait until Sunday to find out if in the Islands, these weeks being so conducive to summer rest and so little given to fulfilling duties or obligations, participation suffers or not from the misunderstanding that is breathed at street level.

The parties with greater implantation in the archipelago live these days without living, it is difficult for them to make prophecies, they doubt, at times they let themselves be lulled by optimism but immediately afterwards they confess the fear of a blow (the Socialists), of a disappointment tinged with failure (in the PP) or of being overwhelmed by the evil of non-existence, in the case of the Coalition —the nationalists confident in maintaining their presence in Congress, but without ruling out r a scare—. This final stretch is not turning out to be easy. Too many months of electoral campaign. Too much desire to disconnect. Expecting voters to enthusiastically follow what happens in the campaign is asking a lot. Saturation. Tired and even bored. Hardly the messages keep sneaking into the skin. It smells like sold fish, since the candidates can do little or absolutely nothing else to capture the attention of those who have become impervious to slogans and prefabricated phrases in the kitchens of the venues..

The Islands have not been an exception to the story left behind by the campaign that is taking its last steps at this time. In the Canary Islands, as in other regions, the script of bipartisanship —which is so fought over and needed— has invaded practically everything. The duel at dawn and at all hours of PSOE and PP has barely left room for the rest of the contestants or attendees. Once again the bipartisanship has been directed to the guts, the intestines, the liver, and much less to the head. Once again mobilizing their own with the gasoline of confrontation. You have to throw these out. You have to prevent them from coming. Against. Once again sowing to vote against something or someone, never in favor of something or someone. It has been a campaign for two. Neither four nor more, only the common-law couple of the reigning bipartisanship has occupied the first row of the stalls.

In the Canary Islands, the countryside and life are carried with a little more calm. Although completely marked by the pulse of what happens on the center court —in Madrid—, in the Islands the profile of the candidates of the different parties has facilitated that these weeks have passed at the local level with due respect. Its coincidence with the constitution of the government, councils and city councils has not helped to encourage the campaign either, it is not easy to be one thing and the other. Not even the heat waves have managed to counteract the coldness with which offices, bars or homes have lived with a campaign that will heat or cool the doors where the Canarian Government will knock from autumn.