Feijóo and Díaz leave the debate for the elections

In none of the great cover photos of this XXVI Debate on the State of the Nation does a close-up of Alberto Núñez Feijóo appear.

Bad business.

On the first day, Tuesday, the president, Pedro Sánchez, once again demonstrated his capacity for resilience and surprise and turned around those who presumed he was almost in an exit cycle or predisposed to another internal crisis.

His speech seemed like a compendium of the 25 working groups into which Yolanda Díaz has broken down her Sumar political project.

That day the most outstanding image was that of the Government and PSOE bloc applauding the president enthusiastically, with the exception of Diaz, who was more absorbed.

She was sick.

Sánchez's left turn pleased him.

And also to the other partners.

There is no disagreement on that.

But these no longer trust words and launch more and more warnings.

Feijóo appeared that day at times between misplaced and stunned.

It was not his debate nor did the PP get away with his plans, as they admit in a fairly general way, with his occasional spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, involved in rescuing the worst of ETA and defeated terrorism.

Everyone is already thinking about the culmination of the legislature and Sánchez, Feijóo and Díaz about how to position themselves for the next elections.

President Sánchez began the session on Tuesday by going back to the portrait of a "weaker and more fragile" Spain in 1983, during the first Debate of the Nation accepted by the then rookie president Felipe González, to highlight and compare everything that has changed since then.

The country and the Courts.

In the current ones, no one survives from then and only four parliamentarians from the previous debate, seven years ago, when the parties that broke the bipartisan method began to break into Spain.

The president, some ministers, advisers and collaborators, the few who dare, have advised him months ago that he should get out of the Moncloa bubble more, show more empathy and closeness to the people who are having a hard time and open up the range more of events and forums in which it participates.

Díaz herself maintained, last Sunday in an interview in EL PAÍS, that sometimes this coalition government lacks something of a "soul."

During the initial 40 minutes of her speech, Sánchez naturally spoke about the war in Ukraine and its tremendous consequences in the international arena.

But he also did not avoid the warnings about the repercussions that he is already having in Spain and those that could multiply from next autumn.

"We can't rule anything out," she conceded "bluntly."

From that moment he chained up to 14 announcements of measures,

promises and commitments of a more social and progressive nature than those expressed so far by the Executive, which should set the agenda for the end of the legislature.

A chapter of attacks was also reserved for the new PP of the Feijóo-Gamarra tandem, but to equate it "in tension, noise and decibels" with that of Pablo Casado and his squire Teodoro García Egea.

The socialist seats, those of United We Can and those of the usual partners almost exploded with emotion.

Everyone who knows him knows Sánchez's ability to resurface and right there they found that it had happened again.

Feijóo left the chamber to eat with his family and did not speak before the almost 400 accredited journalists from 92 media outlets.

Gamarra went to the press room for the evaluation carousel, and did not articulate an orderly message.

He simply did not give any credit to Sánchez's offers.

The PP avoided giving the bureaucratic battle in Congress to force an intervention by Feijóo before the plenary session that is not foreseen or prohibited in the regulations, but it did not want to wage the media either.

They say in his team that they did not want to take the focus off Gamarra.

That he will have other occasions, or not?,

to be measured if the president agrees to resubmit to his control in the Senate.

That it was not yet Feijóo's time, because La Moncloa had played with the date to place it when it best suited the president.

Strategy or excuses?

Feijóo's PP had anticipated that his reply would focus on reaffirming that Spain is in a worse state now after Sánchez passed through La Moncloa, in all aspects, but fundamentally in the economic and institutional one, which is how they refer to everything the rest.

Gamarra, however, began to talk about ETA, about Miguel Ángel Blanco, the popular mayor of Ermua assassinated 25 years ago;

He haggled with the president to force a minute of silence that had not been previously agreed upon as it should have been, and on his white suit the blue ribbon that was then the symbol of that lost spirit of unity in the face of terrorism stood out.

He looked a lot at Feijóo, whom he quoted several times as "the president of my party."

He seemed to be passing an exam.

And if so, he didn't get over it, even for numerous deputies from his formation,

The president, as is obligatory, endured in his seat almost the three long days that the debate lasted, with small interruptions to get some sleep.

He did not approach the journalists at any time to comment on anything.

Only the veteran Miguel Ángel Aguilar managed to stop him when he was accessing his car for a few seconds to exchange some notes on a book by Santos Juliá and the distances traveled between that PSOE of not joining NATO and the current one, whose recent summit in Madrid Sánchez also left gleaming in many photos.

The president asked him for the copy but the journalist denied it because he had it very underlined and annotated.

During the three days of debate, however, the seats reserved for the government were barely seated by the president, vice president Díaz, two ministers from United We Can, Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, and the omnipresent Félix Bolaños, who also defended the end the new and controversial law of Democratic Memory than the anti-crisis decree.

Bolaños ended up so grown up that he even had time after leaving Congress, after three days of euphoria for the PSOE, to stop by the Casa de América to present some prizes and repeat the good news of the reactivated progressive government there.

The socialist and United We Can flank of the Chamber held on for almost three marathon days.

He seemed prepared.

Feijóo, Gamarra and many PP deputies, such as Santiago Abascal, from Vox, took advantage of many gaps to solve other tasks outside.

Some of those parliamentarians reproached Sánchez for how little he appears in Congress (17 times this term) and then left.

On the last day, before the 138 votes on the resolutions, three more than symbolic new photos were registered.

Sánchez and Díaz shared many jokes, smiles and confidences.

The historic Nicolás Sartorius blew a kiss from the guest gallery to the vice president and Díaz explained to the president that he loves him like a second father, with the permission of the hard-working trade unionist from Ferrol Suso Díaz, who followed the debate on TV and did not give credit to such a long, heavy and old format.

The other photo was forced by Feijóo by calling via WhatsApp, while Sánchez was speaking, an oval table meeting in a Congress hall with 19 victims' associations, to which four, very relevant, stood up for the partisan use of their pain.

And the last image was that of Díaz, in red Sumar,

87, who was arrested in 1965, tortured and sentenced to 13 years in prison for belonging to the PCE, and who began to speak non-stop in the middle of the Congress courtyard, without fear of the hot sun, about the process of Burgos and of the unquestionable progress of repairing all the victims.

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