Although it has been going on for many weeks, the drafting, debate and permanent disagreements over the so-called 'only yes means yes' law between the Spanish Socialists (PSOE) and the equality minister, Irene Montero, of Unides Podemos, passed an apparent point of no return this Wednesday due to the accusations from the minister accusing the People's Party (PP) of promoting rape culture. The words of the Podemos politician received a strong response from Meritxell Batet, who criticized them from the speaker's chair in Congress and asked her to use restraint in her language after declaring that the expression was not appropriate for parliamentary use. The Socialist Batet was not the only one to join the fray with a minister from the coalition partner since with every day that passes, the controversy of the 'only yes means yes' law, far from abating, has a new front open.
And the fact is that, at the point we have reached, there are few people who dispute that the law, passed in August by the Spanish houses of parliament, is not as precise as it should be and that the juridical work done is deficient. It is not just that there are judges who are taking advantage of the situation to weaken the government of Pedro Sánchez, making him pay the debts for a mixture of old offences, but also that the equality ministry has lacked both the deftness and the cunning that would have avoided creating this mess and opening the way to interpretations that end up favouring the release of jailed convicts in an issue as delicate, dangerous and sensitive as rape crimes. The PSOE does not know how to put out this fire, while the judges make different interpretations in many areas of Spain, one day leaning towards the revision of the law, another day waiting for the Supreme Court to create doctrine, and the rest opting to do nothing.
But this whole situation, in addition to wearing down the government by conveying an image of incoherence - with Sánchez having no intention of kicking them out, while Unidas Podemos isn't planning to leave - highlights the cracks in a coalition that is needed as much as it is hated. The Socialists must increase electoral support to prevent a government between PP and Vox, but they also need Unidas Podemos not to collapse and to maintain the positions currently held. It is not easy to square the circle, since what suits the PSOE is apparently antagonistic to what the alternative left party needs, and vice versa. In addition, significant Socialist barons who see how their position in the next municipal or regional elections could be jeopardized are taking pot-shots at Pedro Sánchez without even blushing. Thus, we have the absolutely unrecognizable sight of a PSOE in which a regional leader, this Wednesday it was the Aragonese president Javier Lambán, has used harsh words against a general secretary who is also prime minister.
Thus, Lambán affirmed at the conclusion of a round table on autonomy that Spain would have been better off if the secretary general of the PSOE had not been Sánchez. Words that will please the right and with which Lambán seeks to strengthen his position for re-election in Aragon in the autonomous elections in May. There are many ways to say things, but Lambán has chosen the most acidic one, without caring at all whether he lost Sánchez's favour. Something that is very unusual in an organization in which not even a leaf is picked without the approval of the general secretary. Although there have always been dissenting barons - previously there were Ibarra, Bono and Chaves - the virulence and attacks were not so direct and devastating.
With a different PM to Sánchez, the avalanche of problems he has on top of him - one needs to add, among the most serious, the reform of sedition and the appointment, so far failed, of new members of the Constitutional Court - would be enough to make you think he was facing an insurmountable barrier. But this prime minister came back from political death once and seems accustomed to always living with one foot in the grave.