The most veterans of the PSOE, those who are trying today, without much success, to articulate an alternative to the departure of Pedro Sánchez and are known ironically and with disdain in Ferraz as “socialist youth”they remember how their party went to compete in every election with the idea of always winning.
Now they see how the PSOE presents itself in the regional elections of the new electoral cycle trying to lower its expectations to mitigate a probable defeat. And above all in the face of an enormous ideological paradox: The only victory that socialists aspire to in Extremadura, Andalusia or Aragon is a rise of Vox.
The socialist leadership of Pedro Sanchez It is contradictory that a good result of the far right in all these elections is celebrated as a political success in Ferraz and Moncloa.
In this way, the PP would have to agree with those of Santiago Abascal, thus weakening the position of the Alberto Nuñez Feijóo and allow the PSOE to use fear of the far right and the specific content of the PP’s pacts with Vox as a campaign argument for the general elections.
Electoral joys for Sánchez can only come from the rise of Vox. In other words, Sánchez needs a strong Voxalmost as if it were his own”electoral “white label”, for strategic purposes.
In Extremadura, all PSOE sources are counting on a disastrous result on December 21, from a candidate overwhelmed by having been prosecuted and, therefore, not having respected all the ethical standards of the socialists.
But even before the trial, with the Prime Minister’s brother, Miguel Angel Gallardo He was already considered a bad candidate by Sánchez, who tried to unseat him without success.
All he has to do now is grit his teeth, hit the ground running and pray for Vox.
Something similar is happening in Andalusia, with the difference that the candidate is María Jesús Montero, Sánchez’s right-hand woman, but the objective is still that Juanma Moreno I have to depend on Vox. The PSOE also lights a candle for Vox in Andalusia.
This is why, PSOE regional leaders do not hide their panic in private because they see that they will have to personally pay the usury of the Sánchez government and its ratification in the headquarters of Ferraz. That they will have to run for elections without aspiring to win them.
This already happened in May 2023, when the PP achieved the greatest autonomous and municipal power it has ever had thanks to the attrition of Sánchez.
Now it’s increased because they collapsed the two flags with which the socialist leader arrived at Moncloa in July 2018: the fight against corruption and the defense of feminism.
And this happened just on the eve of the start of the electoral cycle, almost in the middle of the Extremadura electoral campaign. Above all, what refers to the Salazar affairthat is to say the apparent protection of Moncloa and Ferraz towards the president’s advisor denounced as a sex offender.
Socialist sources explain that this case is even worse than those of corruption because of the attack on its principles, the delegitimization of a discourse that the PSOE has held for a long time, especially since the time of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
And because it makes it more difficult for them to continue the female vote which saved them in the 2023 legislative elections.
Furthermore, they see Sánchez weakened by the accumulation, as José Luis Ábalos first fell due to allegations of corruption and sexist behavior while he was his right-hand man; SO Santos Cerdan for alleged corruption, then Paco Salazar for sexual harassment.
Too much bad luck in the choice of his closest collaboratorswhich makes it more and more difficult for them to make speeches to protect the socialist leader.
By asserting that he was unaware of the reprehensible activity of those who were successively his right-hand man, they run the risk of doing him a disservice by making him a president who knew nothing.
Humiliated in front of Puigdemont
For this reason, socialist sources believe that Salazar affair because of the very sensitive subject to which it refers and because it directly affects the President of the Government. As for Ábalos and Cerdán.
They also see Sánchez giving an image of extreme weakness with his act of contrition that is not shameful to once again win the favor of Carles Puigdemont. A scenario which also causes collateral damage in the rest of the communities.
It is therefore particularly important revolt of socialist women throughout Spain regarding the Salazar affair in what, to a certain extent, is an internal censorship from Sánchez himself, and which revealed the unbearable lightness of Ferraz at this moment.
Already before the summer, these socialist women stood out when the details of the cases of Ábalos and Cerdán became known and Sánchez had to organize a meeting of several of them in Ferraz to calm their minds.
He got there halfway, partly because it was an act of listening and what was broadcast to Sánchez’s entourage was only what he had told them, not what he had heard from the women.
This power of women was later manifested when they pushed to overcome the resistance of Sánchez’s entourage to fire Salazar by publishing The newspapercomplaints against him. Just the day he was going to be elevated to almost leader of the PSOE organization.
The candidate ministers act as a buffer and silence the unrest in the territories.
They become spokespersons and leaders of the opposition to barons of the PP, but they cannot silence the discomfort, the worry and even the fear of second and third autonomous levelswho believe that they will end up paying the bill for Sánchez’s usury.
Especially because the president of the government seems to have decided to concentrate on all the regional elections, to the point of making them plebiscites for his administration.
This has an obvious impact on the choice of the date of the general elections.
Many fear that they will coincide with their autonomous regions, and in some cases they would prefer that elections to Congress and the Senate take place well before voting takes place in their territories. Therein lies Sánchez’s dilemma when planning his electoral calendar.
The president of Castilla-La Mancha, Emiliano García Page, always critical of Sánchez, is the only one to have publicly expressed this fear, in particular that the general, regional and municipal elections will coincide in 2027.
Moncloa believes that the debate on public services, their management by PP communities and privatizations can save them.
They have arguments such as the disaster of dana management in the Valencian Community, the fires in Castile and León, the cancer screening errors in Andalusia and the failures of private management of public health in the Community of Madrid.
They want this to compensate for the wear and tear on Sánchez. But if he insists on the “nationalization” of each regional campaign, he will overshadow the debates on the management of each territory.
And that’s why some would prefer less Moncloa and more territorial organization with the own agenda of each community.
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