Ángel Collado
After a year and a half of electoral failures, Pedro Sánchez clears responsibilities with changes and appointments at the head of the party and the socialist parliamentary group of leaders already known as the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, or amortised years ago as the former president of the Basque autonomous government Patxi López.
A new turnaround by the president of the Government, which this time affects the teams he formed last summer and is due to the urgency of raising his profile, first in the polls and then in the municipal and regional elections in May 2023.
Having confirmed in the last debate on the state of the nation his commitment to populism in economic policy as a response to rising inflation and the imminence of the crisis, the head of the Executive is trying to reposition the pieces in the party.
The government, which was thoroughly reshuffled just over a year ago, remains convinced that it is doing a good job, even if public opinion does not perceive it as such. Far from accepting management errors, acknowledging the problems of cohesion within the party or the consequences of keeping all the separatist parties happy, including the heir to ETA’s political arm, Sánchez points the finger at those responsible for the organisation and communication of his party.
Even the official Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, controlled by the Sanchez loyalist Félix Tezanos, points out in its latest poll that the Partido Popular, with Alberto Núñez Feijóo at its head, is already leading in voting intentions and is almost two points ahead of the PSOE. After the PP’s absolute majority victory in the regional elections in Andalusia (Spain’s most populous region), private polls have doubled and even tripled this difference in recent weeks.
The secretary general of the socialists now changes the leaders he himself chose last summer to lead the party (Adriana Lastra, 13 months in the post) and the parliamentary group in Congress: Héctor Gómez, 10 months in the post. Both had no more weight and previous experience in the organisation than those derived from Sánchez’s appointment.
But the president of the government’s most trusted men and women do not last long, and the most novel aspect of these recent changes is the compatibility of some of those chosen. María Jesús Montero, as Finance Minister, was the member of the Government with the biggest task ahead of her from September onwards: to draw up, present and seek support for the draft General State Budget that the Executive needs to tackle the economic crisis and end the legislature. Since last Saturday, she has also had to lead the PSOE as deputy secretary general and prepare the electoral cycle that the May elections will open.
The case of Patxi López as spokesman of the parliamentary group is that of an unexpected rise in a political leader with a four-decade career behind him, but already in retirement. President of the Basque autonomous government in 2009, albeit on the rebound (he came second in the elections to the PNV) and thanks to the PP’s abstention, he spent almost four years in office without touching the nationalists’ power structures until the following elections were won again by the penuvists. Then, in national politics, he fought and lost in the primary elections for secretary general, which Sánchez won.
López was later the most ephemeral president of Congress in democracy: the six months that the failed legislature of 2016 lasted. Sánchez had made a pact with Ciudadanos to become president of the Government and displace the PP, but he did not obtain the support of the majority of the House and the elections had to be repeated, which were won again by Mariano Rajoy. López had been a member of Congress since 2017, and in recent days he had stood out within the PSOE as a defender of his party’s pacts with Bildu, a party that inherited the political arm of the terrorist group ETA.
The changes in spokespersons are completed with the appointment of the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, as head of party communication. Yet another sign that the head of the Executive conceives the former PSOE, the one he left without ideological currents or an active old guard when he took over the general secretariat in 2017, as an extension of his cabinet.
