“The drift is total.” This sentence from a senior socialist official sums up well the atmosphere that has settled in the PSOE in recent weeks. The Government faces the end of the year completely exhausted, without the capacity to overcome scandals … which follow one another, and without political initiative, with a completely deactivated parliamentary majority. “We go from blow to blow,” laments a leader, who does not hide the feeling of being knocked out which invades the training.
Every day a new waterway opens up for the party and the general perception is that there are no hands, not enough, to plug them all. “When you try to close one front, three emerge”illustrates with desolation a territorial charge. All sources consulted by ABC share “discouragement” and “despair” in the home stretch of 2025. An end-of-cycle climate that goes beyond the exhaustion of the current year.
“It’s a feeling of collapse,” they say.at a very controversial moment, moreover, because we are on the eve of a new electoral cycle in which the prospects of the PSOE are very bad and it is expected to chain six months of electoral defeats. While Pedro Sánchez affirms that he will occupy legislative power until 2027 “and beyond”, with the objective of 2031, few now agree that this horizon is viable. At least, with this level of wear.
The state attorney general’s conviction; José Luis Ábalos, Koldo García and Santos Cerdán; Former right-hand man of Leire Díez and María Jesús Montero within SEPI, arrested; the cases of sexual harassment of Paco Salazar, Antonio Navarro, the mayor of Belalcázar and the former president of the Provincial Council of Lugo, as well as the dismissal of Antonio Hernández Espinal for covering up the events in Moncloa and the departure of Javier Izquierdo from the Federal Executive. Added to this is the investigation opened at the National Court into the accounts of the PSOE. ‘And it could get worse,’ predicts top executive who already sees the horizon of the Christmas holidays as the only hope of being able to “reset” and catch their breath.
The feeling that floods the centers of socialist power is similar to that felt before the summer. Then came a devastating blow, the involvement of Santos Cerdán in the criminal conspiracy of the “Koldo Affair”; Now it’s by accumulation. An overflow technique, which may end up having a narcotic effect, but which projects deep weakness and an image of decay. The cases of corruption that surround the PSOE and the government generate attrition, but the devastating blow has been everything related to the negligent management of the cases of sexual harassment that have occurred in Moncloa and in the party.
The Government does not hide the suspicions aroused by the concentration of cases that have occurred in recent weeks. “I don’t believe in coincidences,” says a member of the Government. The Executive also considers that the PP has privileged information, because this week in the Senate they anticipated the arrests that were going to take place. The political-media-judicial conspiracy theory once again functions as a defense mechanism and to attempt to exploit a sense of victimization towards the electorate so that it has some sort of mobilizing effect. Something that has already been attempted with the state attorney general’s conviction.
There is worry within the party and they see no way out: “It can only get worse”
Beyond the reputational crisis, what generates this sensation is a dissolving effect on activism and the electorate, a boredom and a demobilization which worries the territorial officials consulted at the dawn of a new electoral cycle. The recipe given by socialist sources is to “hold on until everything clears up”. “We have to wait for the storm to pass,” they say.. Even if they seem rather trapped in an explosive cyclogenesis.
After the “via crucis” of Extremadura, Aragon, Castile and León and Andalusia, municipal and regional elections are planned and the internal demand for Sánchez to appear at the polls increases before the party does so at the local and regional level. They see no chance of a comeback, which adds even more apathy and discouragement to the team.. “I’m sick of whores and stalkers.” This sentence from the socialist spokesperson in the Andalusian Parliament, Ángeles Ferriz, was particularly eloquent and representative of the feeling that drives the party.
Partners hold on
In this state of composition, the only thing that still supports the Government is that its partners have not let it down. Although internally and also publicly, they criticize the management that has been made of cases of sexual harassment, the climate of corruption which permeates everything. They continue to procrastinate and frame him in “personal cases”.
The red line lies in the irregular financing of the party, accounts which are the subject of an investigation before the National Court. Even if there are allies who They compare the situation with the last years of Felipe Gonzálezthey still have no incentive to promote the fall of Sánchez, because this would mean the advent of an agreement between PP and Vox in which none of these political actors would have the capacity for influence that they currently have.
The partners complain that “every day is news” and liken the situation to the groans of felipismo.
There are those who demand a return to social measures, to try to recover lost political initiative. “Every day is news,” they complain in a transversal manner the allies of the Government, on the cases of corruption which dominate the public debate. Control of the agenda is external to Moncloa, marked by the progress of legal cases and sexual scandals. And the fear spreading among socialists is that this is “only just beginning.”
They do not see any horizon of resolution which would prevent the situation from being reoriented, but rather they believe that “Everything can get worse” and that if we do not stop the degradation of the acronym, they risk not only losing the power, which is already taken for granted, but also the ability to regain it in the future. “It is not a question here of the next elections, which will be a disaster, but of the depth of the hole in order to be able to come out of it later,” declares forcefully a seasoned leader.
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