Ángel Collado
The electoral disaster reaped by Pedro Sánchez in Madrid, including the transfer of the socialist vote to the candidate of the right, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has aired and aggravated the internal fights in the parties that make up the coalition in the government: the PSOE and Podemos.
The crisis has changed sides, from the opposition to the parties in power, and the legislature has gone from a controlled blockade from La Moncloa to the wear and tear of its tenant when he has to at least enunciate economic measures for which he does not have a parliamentary majority.
The regional elections, forced by Sánchez himself in his eagerness to take over the PP’s fiefdom, have destabilised the entire network of internal balances and plans for socialists and podemites to remain in power. In the case of the PSOE, they have even resuscitated the party’s old guard, led by Felipe González, always critical of Sanchez’s bid to pact with the extreme left of Pablo Iglesias and the secessionist parties, including Bildu.
Moreover, the internal cracks are widening with the first reactions of the socialist leadership to cover up its failure: forcing resignations in Madrid (Ángel Gabilondo) as if any decision on strategy, candidates and the campaign had been taken in Madrid; expelling from the party the only regional president the PSOE has ever had in Madrid, Joaquín Leguina, and also the former president of the Basque socialists, Nicolás Redondo.
Sánchez, after the fiasco in Madrid, has decided to take control of the only federation of his party that he does not control, the Andalusian federation, and to force the withdrawal of his former adversary, Susana Díaz. And he has also managed to revive the former president of the Junta, who is ready to fight in a primary election against the official candidate, Juan Espadas.
All the leaders and ex-leaders of the PSOE, from Díaz to González, will have a voice in the coming months, a free bar of loudspeakers and even an internal vote to censure Sánchez in public.
Faced with this possible erosion of his image, the president of the government’s great asset for his stability is the direct management by his cabinet of the 70 billion euros in investments that must come from the EU to alleviate the economic crisis. This is the advantage that Vox gave him in Congress in January by abstaining on the resulting decree law on European funds.
But in the coming months, Sánchez’s Cabinet will have to take concrete steps to implement his most unpopular economic measures (pensions and taxes) and his foreseeable renunciations, such as the labour counter-reform, with an unexpectedly boiling party and its partners, Podemos, in the midst of a process of change due to the departure of Pablo Iglesias.
of the left in Madrid precipitated or served as an alibi for the Podemos leader to leave politics. It lightens Sánchez’s government of extremism, the only one in Europe with communist ministers, but obliges his successors to ensure that they have a share of influence in the measures of the same executive.
The crisis in Podemos is now in full swing, with the split of Iñigo Errejón triumphing in Madrid against the ‘authentic’ podemites, the vice-president and minister of labour, Yolanda Díaz, as Iglesias’ official heir in the coalition government, and the race for the organic leadership of Podemos before the party’s next congress.
The official contender for Iglesias’ succession turns out to be another minister, Ione Belarra, from the most extremist sector of the party and whose close friendship with Irene Montero, wife of Pablo Iglesias, marks her short political career. Iglesias goes to the private sector and leaves the distribution of his inheritance in the government and in the party on track without leaving his strict family and personal clan.
