When Miquel Iceta began working at the Spanish government's Moncloa palace, under the then-deputy prime minister Narcís Serra, the current Spanish PM Pedro Sánchez, who appointed him as territorial minister on Tuesday, was 18 years old. Iceta, on the other hand, had just turned 30 and, a few months after Serra had arrived as the Moncloa's "chief cook", a Royal Decree published on 21st June 1991 appointed Miquel Iceta Llorens as director of analysis in the prime minister's department. Thus began a political trajectory, uninterrupted so far, in which the newly-appointed minister has surmounted the insurmountable: he left smelling of roses even though the government was tainted by the GAL death squads and corruption, as Felipe González met his agonizing end in 1996; he later re-floated the PSC (Catalan Socialist Party) which seemed to be threatened with a more than probable absorption by its Spanish big brother, the PSOE, at the very beginning of the independence process... and now he returns to the Moncloa. In the middle, 30 years, exactly half of his life, in the party of which he is first secretary, and in Parliament, and always busy in the kitchen of the deals done by the Catalan Socialists.
With Pedro Sánchez, he has more than a biographical similarity: both can be considered political survivors as they have reacted when at the edge of the abyss and have always floated to the surface. Another analogy is that they have both made politics a little more than their profession: it has been their only job. The third resemblance of Iceta is not with Sánchez but with his replacement in Catalonia, Salvador Illa. Like the just-resigned health minister, he takes on a portfolio which could be called a doddle, that of territorial policy, which for a year has been led by Carolina Darias San Sebastián. Hardly anyone even knows this Canary Islander has been a minister up till now. But life throws its curveballs: Illa was faced with the eruption of the pandemic, something for which no one was prepared and neither was he. In other words, nobody knows what situation Iceta may get to see as minister.
Beyond the profile of the new minister, who was obviously rewarded by Sánchez for his disciplined acceptance when replaced as candidate for the presidency of Catalonia, the real dilemma, the real ethical dilemma, is whether it is right for a public servant like the health minister to leave office in the midst of the pandemic in Spain because it has been considered that he is in the best position to obtain a good election result for the PSC. He may succeed or not but he has not been told to leave due to his poor management - there have been moments lately when he could have been - but rewarded beyond the disastrous Covid-19 data that Spain offers compared to the countries around it, winning the numbers game at the wrong end.
But Pedro Sánchez does not see it that way and, surfing on what he considers the "Illa effect", promotes him to win the Catalan presidency. It is legitimate. But is it ethical? Party interests above the public interest? The party ahead of the government? It does not seem the most honest or the most patriotic action but rather a short-term move so typical of his prime ministerial style in which there are no other interests on the table than his own. Just as there is no agreement he makes that he is able to honour, and he marches over the permanent disappointment of his partners, allies or interlocutors, with an attitude of total triviality. In politics, you sometimes think that you've seen it all. But there is little precedent for the level of breach of an agreement like that of the dialogue table between Spanish and Catalan governments.
But, well, so far it has done him no damage. We'll see if in the elections of February 14th, Sánchez, Iceta and Illa have discarded the team number they've been wearing on their backs for the last three years: 155, for their alignment with the suppression of Catalonia's autonomy. Or, on the contrary, if this is already a thing of the past.