Sánchez vows to resist, despite everything except GDP.
He has almost everything against him, except the economic growth metric. He's surrounded by adversities, except for the GDP isthmus, and he swears his peninsula will hold out. He'll hold out until the end and will run in the 2027 general elections with the will to win. That's what he assures his interlocutors.
To resist is to win. The legendary cry that weaves the cloak of Spanish obstinacy—and courage—from Sagunto to Dr. Negrín, resonates throughout the Moncloa complex. A strange place, Moncloa. Inside, accelerated information circuits. Outside, nightingale songs and peaceful gardens, since the main command center of Spanish politics is located in a setting that invites one to feel removed from history. “I will resist,” Pedro Sánchez vows.
The noise from the street doesn't penetrate that space; no one goes out for a coffee at the bar on the corner—I'll be back in two minutes—and this has been the cause of notable political errors since Adolfo Suárez moved the seat of the Prime Minister to the outskirts of Madrid in 1977 to gain space, strengthen security, and send a message of modernity and change. After a while, people began to talk about the Moncloa syndrome . Encapsulation, detachment from reality.
Is Sánchez suffering from a new bout of that syndrome of imagining an infinite capacity for resistance? Gary Cooper in High Noon . "I know the pressure will increase, and I'm prepared to withstand it," the president assures his interlocutors.
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It has almost everything against it except the economic metrics. It's true, GDP growth is no longer synonymous with social happiness, but many European leaders today would kill to have Spain's growth figures.
Let's go in order. Sánchez has the new US administration against him. Signals are beginning to emerge in this regard. However, Spain will not be among Washington's priorities while the Rota naval base remains calm. The new US ambassador, Benjamín León, an octogenarian businessman from Miami, will not arrive in Madrid until August. There's no rush. The two new US ambassadors to Italy (Quirinal Hill and the Holy See) have been in Rome for weeks pulling strings.
Preference of PSOE and PP leaders among their voters
Percentage of approval of his voters during the 2019 and 2023 legislative periods according to the CIS barometers of each month
Preference of PSOE and PP leaders among their voters
Percentage of approval of his voters during the 2019 and 2023 legislative periods according to the CIS barometers of each month
Preference of PSOE and PP leaders among their voters
Percentage of approval of his voters during the 2019 and 2023 legislative periods according to the CIS barometers of each month
He has the Israeli government against him, and that's no small feat. Sánchez continues to insist on his condemnation of the massacre of civilians in Gaza , just yesterday before the Arab League plenary session in Baghdad. That is now his quadrant, a quadrant that formally distances him from the rearmament rhetoric, while Podemos labels him as "warmongering." The small Podemos has returned to the two-sided rhetoric popularized by Julio Anguita in the 1990s. For them, the PSOE is now the "party of war." Its four deputies in Congress are not token representatives. They can decide majorities, and Sánchez has no mechanisms to control them. Yolanda Díaz has lost steam—it was a given—and Podemos is accentuating its radicalism to become the linchpin of a new post-Pedro Sánchez electoral space. They, too, belong to the " to resist is to win" lineage.
Sánchez still counts in the European Union, but we observe a certain tactical retreat. He hasn't attended papal ceremonies, and he isn't seeking photo ops with Macron, Starmer, Merz, and Tusk these days regarding Ukraine. We are no longer in the social democratic moment of 2020-2021, when he negotiated recovery funds on behalf of Southern Europe. We are in the rearmament moment , and the new leadership is formed by Germany, France, and Poland, with external assistance from the United Kingdom. Spain is not on that axis, nor is Italy.
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Sánchez cannot offer to send intermediary troops to Ukraine. He doesn't have the majority in Parliament to take that step. He doesn't even have the majority to ratify the new friendship treaty with France. The increase in military spending to 2% of GDP demanded by NATO will be carried out outside of Congress, with dubious juggling acts.
He has almost all of Madrid City against him. This isn't new, but the Castellana turbines are accelerating. He has the conservative judiciary against him, encapsulated in Judge Manuel Marchena's latest book . Judicial investigations into his wife and brother remain open. Former minister José Luis Ábalos, the man who convinced Sánchez in October 2016 not to abandon politics, and who is now under judicial investigation, has authorized the leak of WhatsApp conversations with the president with the undisguised purpose of requesting protection. There's nothing in these conversations that alters the situation, but it's all good for the pot. New dossiers from the UCO are announced. In Madrid City, reports from the most elite unit of the Civil Guard are announced weeks in advance, which gives us an exact measure of the moment we're in. "I will resist," Sánchez vows.
Preference between Núñez Feijóo and Díaz Ayuso among PP voters
Approval percentage according to CIS barometers
Preference between Núñez Feijóo and Díaz Ayuso among PP voters
Approval percentage according to CIS barometers
Preference between Núñez Feijóo and Díaz Ayuso among PP voters
Approval percentage according to CIS barometers
He can't pass the budget, he can't pass the friendship treaty with France, his playing field in the European Union has narrowed, and he won't be able to pass the reduction of the working day, Yolanda Díaz's flagship project that the PSOE doesn't care about.
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His margin is narrowing, but his main rival is at his lowest level of popularity since becoming president of the Popular Party. (See attached graphs.) Alberto Núñez Feijóo is currently below Pablo Casado's level.
Sánchez is willing to resist the unspeakable, and Feijóo is committed to total immobility. The Romay-Beccaría School. Don't ask for fantasies. Don't demand filigree. The important thing is to be under the tree to pick the ripe fruit. While everything is moving out there, Spanish politics presents a mineral texture. A lunar landscape in which the rocks are called upon to resist.
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