When the organization of a political party uses the word 'disloyal' to describe the former leaders who are its historical reference points, that means two things: that a serious crisis has opened in the organization, and that the representatives of the past are not accepting the passage of time and don't mind walking like the living dead through the land of the present. Now, having dropped their masks and bared their chests, Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, Spanish Socialist (PSOE) leaders of last century, have decided to undermine the ground on which Pedro Sánchez stands in an attempt to stop him reaching agreement with the Catalan president in exile, Carles Puigdemont, and from making progress towards the historic commitment that the independence leader offered him at the beginning of September at his now famous address in Brussels. With friends like these, what need do I have for enemies, the calculating Sánchez must wonder, as he looks to move towards an investiture that is still a long way from being tied up.
Nobody told the acting Spanish prime minister that it would be easy: the obstacles to be removed before the seven Together for Catalonia (Junts) deputies might guarantee their votes are so large that the possibility of going to a repeat election is a more than real hypothesis. Sánchez already knew that the People's Party (PP), the Spanish right, the fervent Madrid that pays homage to Aznar and his devoted disciple Isabel Ayuso, the powers of the media and a very significant part of the economic and financial worlds would all be against him. There was no reason for the battle they have all taken to him in recent years to have been appeased by the uncertain electoral result of July 23rd. But for the PSOE of the Democratic Transition, that of the regime of 1978, of the GAL, the 23-F coup attempt and the LOAPA* to be ready to step into the ring and knock him down in a way that would only benefit the PP and Vox? This was not in the script.
Felipe** and Guerra must be thinking they have an awful lot to lose to have come out with their sleeves rolled up and using all the media loudspeakers they can to try and blow away any agreement between Sánchez and the independentists. Certainly, nothing like this has ever been experienced in the PSOE, not even close. Listening to the party's organizational secretary, Santos Cerdán, calling them disloyal is a point of no return, and it is the same word that was used to expel Nicolás Redondo Terrenos a week ago. And, on the same morning, seeing the minister spokesperson, also a Socialist, Isabel Rodríguez, urging them to respect the current leadership of the PSOE, is more than anyone has ever done with these two sacred cows.
They have come out in such an altered state and with a discourse as disloyal as it is antiquated, that Alfonso Guerra still thought that time hadn't passed and his vitriolic attitude against everyone would be well received even if he uttered real atrocities. In one of these, he went so far over the limit that the chauvinist and arrogant Guerra of yesteryear was heard when referring to acting Spanish deputy PM Yolanda Díaz and the criticism she had made of him for his reactionary position on the issue of amnesty. "The deputy PM criticizing a lack of political and legal rigour? Her? She will have had time between one hair salon and the next, she will have had a little time to study." There is little to listen to from this point on from someone who is this sexist, close to being another Rubiales character and completely lacking in decency.
It has all gone so far that it is evident that Sánchez will no longer be able to return them to silence, since they have decided that the PP is better, at this time, than the current leader of the PSOE. Now we will really see the candidate's mettle. But perhaps in this path to the investiture, a journey back to the starting point will also end up being truly impossible.
*Translator's note 1: Spain's LOAPA or "Ley Orgánica de Armonización del Proceso Autonómico" was a 1982 law that placed limits on the powers of the state's territorial units, the autonomous communities, not long after they had first been created.
**Translator's note 2: Felipe González, Spanish prime minister from 1982 to 1996, was popularly known to Spaniards at the time as simply "Felipe".