It is clear that in a prime ministerial investiture the winner is the one who obtains the confidence of the legislative chamber, and from this point of view Pedro Sánchez has hit the jackpot. He seemed to have no options on May 28th when the Socialists (PSOE) lost the municipal elections and, to everyone's surprise, he called the Spanish elections for July 23rd the very next day. That was the first masterly blow: with the stroke of a pen he escaped the critics, who were legion, and they all hurried off to make sure they sure would be reelected. Thus, he tamed the party and bought time, something that in politics is key when things go against you. Against wind and tide, he confounded the opinion polls on July 23rd and the People's Party (PP) and Vox failed to win the elections with an absolute majority. So, another lifeline: if he could amass a majority of all others against the PP and Vox, he would retain office. There was just one 'but', and it wasn't a minor one: he had rewind on everything he had ever declared and start to woo Carles Puigdemont - who quickly went from being called a fugitive to being treated as president - because without the seven votes of Together for Catalonia (Junts) there was no way to get a result.
You only need to read the political agreement signed between the PSOE and Junts and what it says to conclude that the Spanish PM, then still in caretaker mode, did his homework thoroughly and shamelessly. He was not the first: in 1996, José María Aznar shifted, in the blink of an eye, to stating publicly in an interview with TV3 that he spoke Catalan in private, in an act of empathy that was precisely calculated to what the leaders of Convergència i Unió demanded at the time. Similarly, Sánchez changed his position on the amnesty and in an exercise of unusual candour declared to the federal committee of his party that it was necessary to make a virtue out of necessity and tie down Puigdemont's votes no matter what. He also succeeded in this venture, and with the absolute majority of 179 votes in his briefcase he faced the Carrera de San Jerónimo this Wednesday.
For a few moments, Sánchez lifted his foot off the brake and got into trouble with Junts by talking about the amnesty as an act of clemency and forgiveness, when it is a legal device to reverse exceptional political circumstances. This detail of frivolity started a small fire, which Santos Cerdán put out as quickly as he could and which was visualized in a timorous Pedro Sánchez when responding to Míriam Nogueras to avoid another mistake. Thus was the last obstacle overcome, but in circumstances which made it clear that this legislature will require a chef capable of blending the most impossible sauce, Sánchez achieved the expected and necessary deputies to start the legislature this Thursday.
We'll have to wait and see if this Pedro Sánchez is a new Sánchez or the old one. He will be making a mistake if he repeats the pattern of the previous legislature and devotes himself more to tricks of deception than to fulfilling his commitments. The Republican Left (ERC) are going to turn the screw more than in previous years and Junts has no room for anything less than full exigence. He will begin to suffer at the first meeting of the negotiating table, which will be held, if the calendar and place are not changed, at the beginning of next week in Switzerland with the negotiators of the PSOE - including José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero - those of Junts, with Carles Puigdemont at the head, and the entire international verification team.
The experience of these months, for both Junts and ERC, has taught them that the Socialists only allow a little slack in borderline situations. Till then, their game is to pay the lowest possible price and set the most distant deadline. Learning to play against this approach has never come easy to those who have had to negotiate with Spain, which - being the state that it is - has a team who are well accustomed to, sooner rather than later, dealing to their partners as in the tale of the scorpion and the frog. And Sánchez has shown that he, among all of them, is an almost unique specimen, who cannot stop being who he is, nor act against his habits or in any other way except how he has learned to behave.