María Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría Antón, the most powerful woman in Spanish politics for several centuries, suffered a humiliating defeat against Pablo Casado on Saturday at the Popular Party (PP) congress held in Madrid to elect the successor to Mariano Rajoy as party leader. Aged 47, and having ruled the roost in the Spanish government, the justice system, and the media and business sectors, she has been dispatched without a second thought by the PP party delegates, whom she always neglected since there is little glamour in reigning over the party faithful. Forty-four days after leaving the Spanish government following Pedro Sánchez's successful no-confidence motion, and stripped of her aura of power, Sáenz de Santamaría has been unable to resist the wave of support for Casado, who united political corpses and offenders from all corners of Spanish geography, along with the far right that never supported Rajoy and pines for José María Aznar.
It is something of a joke that, to turn the page on corruption, the PP delegates have elected Pablo Casado, subject of a court complaint for faking the documentation of a master's degree that he did not attend at the Rey Juan Carlos University in Madrid, an institution already at the centre of the “Mastergate” forgery that led to the resignation of the PP's Cristina Cifuentes, Madrid regional president. Casado has hung on all these months without presenting any evidence against the avalanche of criticism over the affair, making good on the saying that he who resists, wins.
His victory will open a debate on the unification of the Spanish right, currently split into two political parties, the PP and Ciudadanos (Cs). Aznar is strongly committed to such a regrouping and, to Casado, it would not seem a bad idea, in principle. In any case, the next few months will be complicated for the PP, which will have to get over its current disarray and distancing from the Spanish middle classes. The elite lawyers now leave the controlling body of conservative politics, although clues about the political stance that is to be taken on Catalonia have been given by Pablo Casado in two unforgettable phrases. The first, when he referred to President Puigdemont and said "he could end up like Companys" - the 1930s Catalan president executed by Franco; the second, when, at a time of political imprisonments, he reminded the speaker of the Catalan Parliament, Roger Torrent, that he has "two children and knows what might happen". It seems, then, that he doesn't paint with a fine brush; rather with a heavy roller.
Marianismo - the Rajoy political approach - is now history. Just like the felipismo and juancarlismo of earlier periods in Spanish government. The Spanish state renews itself with its natural heirs. The hard right takes a step forward, or perhaps several. We'll see what happens from now on. Meanwhile, this weekend in Madrid, it is evident that bad guys also lose. Female “bad guys” too.