Days of sound and fury

Political corruption is like farts: they are much more annoying when they are foreign. Do you remember the beginnings of the “Gürtel affair”? In February 2009, after the National Court arrested businessman Francisco Correa and opened an investigation that affected the core of the Popular Party, then-president Mariano Rajoy appeared before the media, surrounded by his senior executives, to pronounce one of his historic sentences: “There is no plot by the PP, there is a plot against the PP.”

They are always conspiracies, until proven otherwise. While the right, including its media division, ignored the issue and pretended to be offended, the left (also with its media division) demanded immediate resignations.

The PSOE now has its own problems. There are no convictions and nothing is acquired in the plot that starts from the businessman, or rather the commission agent, Víctor de Aldama, but the party itself has designated José Luis Ábalos, former “ right arm” of Pedro Sánchez, former organizational secretary, former Minister of Public Works. The tumor is recognized. It remains to be seen whether there are metastases. Attributing the affair to simple fabrications is not appropriate.

Of course, the legal problems of the PSOE remain very far (for the moment) from those which shook the PP during the mandate of Mariano Rajoy and which are still current: it was not only Gürtel and the crack of Luis Bárcenas (“Luis, be strong”), but the “Kitchen affair”, that of former commissioner Villarejo and the “patriotic police”, which continues its course. But they are a burden. Especially since the current PSOE has adapted Pedro Sánchez to suit itself after his defenestration in 2016, his triumphant return in 2017, the motion of censure against Rajoy in 2018 and his subsequent inauguration as president of the government. It is difficult to believe that a leaf moves in the PSOE without Sánchez knowing it.

Any form of mutiny within the party can therefore be ruled out. On the other hand, it is unlikely that an electoral movement will destabilize the Government: as we said when talking about farts, corruption or its shadow greatly outrages the rival and little to it (we see that the PP survives despite everything and is the party which obtained the most votes). We do not currently perceive an economic crisis like the one that hit José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The PP, which still clings to Vox and the clumsiness of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, does not represent a vital threat. And Sánchez’s coalition partners have big reasons to stay by his side: they can extract more and more concessions from a government that, as the tax reform package shows, is forced to juggle to pass laws.

The most likely is that Pedro Sánchez will still be there and that the rest of the legislature (we can assume that if he senses a favorable moment, the President of the Government will call early elections) will be full of sound and fury. Which is not good for anyone. These old words from Miguel Primo de Rivera’s manifesto of 1923 (“how many lovers of the Fatherland see no other solution than to free it from political professionals”) find an unfortunate resonance among a good part of the youth of Today. And it is very bad for the Valencians, who face reconstruction with a political corpse at the head of the Generalitat and with a government on the defensive in Madrid.