Fraud

The PP confuses the role of the opposition with that of a dynamite expert. As if the legitimate aspiration to remove Pedro Sánchez from the Moncloa Palace as soon as possible through the ballot box were equivalent to having a license to rig any pillar of Spanish democracy with explosives.

Instead of cutting off the airways that supply oxygen to the presidential bunker, something that requires a minimum of patience, the Popular Party detonates explosives willy-nilly, unconcerned about how much damage it might cause to the foundation walls that uphold the credibility of the institutions and the citizens' trust in them.

The PP shows incomprehensible signs of preferring to burn the castle rather than recover it.

The latest such charge was launched by the People's Party (PP) to question the reliability of the election in Spain . They did so by questioning the validity of the vote counts due to the postal vote, giving credence to the theory of electoral fraud practiced by the Socialists. The culprits were José María Aznar, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and, to a lesser extent, Mariano Rajoy.

Those who point out in this way of acting the influence of the Trumpist playbook, which serves to deny the legitimacy of the current administration and also that of the next, if the results of future elections are not what the opposition expects, are right. The PP is making a double mistake by acting in this way. First, although this doesn't seem to matter to anyone anymore, because it is actively contributing to the spiral of widespread distrust toward democracy, in which more and more citizens are participating. By wanting to win the game, what it is doing is destroying the playing field, so to speak.

But the PP is also damaging itself. At a time when the government and the PSOE are facing an irreparable loss of credibility, the Popular Party (PP) also seems willing to risk its credibility by embracing laughable conspiracy theories. Just when the government is most cornered, just when the PP should be perceived as a serious, rigorous, and credible alternative, its leader, led by two of his predecessors, embraces the election-rigging theory with the same evidence that a flat-earther denies that our planet is an oblate spheroid.

The PP has so much—and it's true—to hold on to in order to continue chipping away at the resilience of the Sánchez regime, that bets of this kind are truly incomprehensible. Especially because no matter how hard the Aznar-Rajoy-Feijóo triumvirate persists, and no matter how many Leires Díezes landed in the Post Office, rigging the election in Spain is impossible given the way our elections are unfolding. Spreading the suspicion that something like this has happened or could happen in the immediate future, out of simple tactical calculation, or rather, out of inexperience, does not reflect well on their self-confidence.

The legislature is set to continue its accelerated process of degradation. Yesterday's government oversight session confirmed this once again. The barroom behavior has reached its peak, and the catalog of insults provided by the dictionary to the deputies is about to be exhausted. We only have to wait and see if their lordships come to blows.

From now until the elections are called, what we will see is the repeated attempt to take the government castle. Catapults spewing fire and steel against the defensive walls, and battering rams pounding the access gates by the attackers. From within, the response will be made, as long as possible, by launching boiling oil and streams of arrows from the battlements to repel the attacks and resist.

This is a way of fighting that puts the very structure of the castle at risk, which could be tremendously damaged by the conflict. Therefore, for the PP, out of its own interest but also for the benefit of the institutionality it must preserve in case it returns to power, it would be more convenient to besiege it than attempt to assault or undermine it. It would be better to position its forces around the walls and patiently wait for the suffocation of those who inhabit the fortress. Until the white handkerchief calling for elections peeks through some loophole. But instead, the PP shows incomprehensible signs of preferring to burn the castle to recapture it. Haste, a need to compete with Vox in radicalism, and a lack of sense of state. This is what lies behind the irresponsible and unnecessary reference to rigged elections.