The PSOE and the PP have been cornerstones of the Spanish political system for more than four decades. Parties alternated in government in a revival of turnover that gave Spain remarkable stability and prosperity and cemented a democracy comparable to that of any Western country. Being the two capitals, the PSOE has had greater influence, on the ground because it has governed 28 of the 48 years of the democratic scene and has in its possession a large part of the laws that transformed the country, but because it continues to be the only formation with the strength to cause a systemic earthquake.
Since the Transition, the PSOE has ruined the republican soul it possessed and avoided promoting a debate on the form of the State, even in the most complex moments when it prevented the rot that surrounded Juan Carlos I from emerging. The omens since Lustro of Spain’s institutional overthrow in Deberian have reason to situate socialists outside the system, as they frivolously do on a daily basis.
The first socialist cycle, with Felipe González, ended with corruption; the second, with Zapatero, inscribed by the Great Recession; and the third, with Pedro Sánchez, faces the most critical phase due to the succession of scandals that attack his credibility in the essential aspects of his speech: the fight against corruption (compromise which allowed him in 2018 to forge an impossible majority in the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy) and feminism. And it was struck in an incontestable way: if Ábalos, Cerdán and Salazar had power in the PSOE and in the government, and they had a lot of power, it was because Sánchez did it that way. In terms of political responsibility, it is a baldón that will always accompany the socialist leader.
It is understandable that Sánchez reiterates that he is going to end the legislature and that he will continue to govern until 2027. Among other reasons, because the power to dissolve the Cortes and postpone the general elections is within the exclusive competence of the President of the Government and because it is one of the most strategic decisions that can be made in politics. More recently, in 2023, Sánchez convened the meetings behind the PSOE batcazo in the municipalities and autonomies, and what appeared to be a reckless order that allowed him to continue governing, even if it was precarious and sacrificed coherence. Sánchez, better than Nadie, knows that elections are not announced, they are called.
Another question is that the president and those who advise him in La Moncloa and Ferraz are truly convinced that this political cycle is not yet over. If this is so, there is only reason to worry, because it would mean that they would settle into an obvious dissociation between belief and reality, leading to a general perception of degradation of public ethics. The agony of the Executive, prey to corruption and machismo, without Presupuestos and without a stable parliamentary majority, is evident at all times. If this were the case, Sánchez and his entourage would have to answer this question: what would the PSOE demand if Feijóo had two people with maximum trust and a solid collaborator in prison under the hypothesis of being a harasser?
Sánchez’s political and personal project enters 2026 into a diabolical disaster. What could be good for the president, who is investigating the legislature in the hope that the storm of scandals will blow over, could be bad for the PSOE, whose autonomous and municipal candidates are facing, as one would expect, successive electoral defeats that further weaken the socialist territorial power, at a minimum. And vice versa: what in principle was bad for Sánchez, was presented before the polls with a message centered on the fear that PP and Vox arrived at, could be good for the aspiring socialists, who arrived at their meetings without the pressure of a campaign monopolized by national politics, and decided, through a plebiscite, Sánchez sí-Sánchez no.
This divergence between the electoral interests of Sánchez and those of the PSOE group flows for the moment in a buried way, but later in the first days it will end with the great debate that has been taking place in this organization since the five days of reflection that took place as socialist leader in April 2024 to decide on his future after the opening of the judicial investigation against his wife. That is to say, thinking of a PSOE without Sánchez. It is logical that socialism feels dizzy in this scenario given the precedents, basically the last one, in which the war between Sánchez and Susana Díaz opened the PSOE on the channel in a cruel and devastating episode of political cannibalism.
The primaries (yes, this moment when the parties opted for direct democracy to the detriment of the representative democracy trailed by the 15-M) gave Sánchez incontestable legitimacy. The power grab supported by the military-leader relationship granted absolute control to the PSOE, which was exercised without hesitation with statutory changes that centralized decision-making, while the influence of representative bodies such as the federal committee diffused and was reduced to nothing in the face of current criticism against them. regional baronets, once a counterweight to the leadership.
It will not be today, nor tomorrow, nor even after the opening of the debate on Sánchez’s successor, but many of those who have been part of this party are aware that the weight of the PSOE in the recent history of Spain is so crucial that improvisation is not a good idea. As this river arrives, we understand that the scandals of recent months have left their families and activists in misery. shock. It is not that the PSOE, with the honorable exception of a handful of women, intends to believe that everyone can remain the same, as if nothing had happened in the past.
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