Closing of Sumar's campaign, at the Tierno Galván amphitheater in Madrid.Rodrigo Jiménez (EFE)
This piece corresponds to one of the shipments of the Electoral Journal bulletin, which is sent every afternoon. If you want to receive it and follow the final stretch until the elections, you can do so at this link.
We finished the campaign as we started, with a small balance of the main candidates, some fabulous findings of these two weeks and some brief considerations before the 23-J.
PSOE. A roller coaster. Pedro Sánchez's campaign has been one of pronounced ups and downs, in line with the cyclothymia that his party historically suffers. The debate with Feijóo knocked out Sánchez, who has been recomposing himself more by the mistakes of the adversary than by his own successes. Part with a disadvantage in the polls, but maintains a confidence that has already led him in the past to overcome impossible missions. That audacity that pushed him to write an autobiography! (Resistance Manual) before he turns 50, makes him surf inconsistencies and contradictions at any time, including the campaign.
PP.From more to less. Alberto Núñez Feijóo started the campaign like a bolide, perhaps because he exceeded all expectations in the debate with Sánchez. He tried to contain the euphoria in his party, but some of its leaders launched into talking about an absolute majority that today seems far away. So strong was he seen on the moderate flank that he openly launched himself for the Vox vote. His second week of campaigning has been marred by the erroneous claim about pensions, his resignation to participate in the RTVE debate and the resurgence of the ghost of the narco Marcial Dorado, an unexplained relationship. The campaign has become very long.
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Add. Only in the final sprint. Yolanda Díaz has emerged at the end of the campaign, after days and days of some lethargy, as if the fierce negotiation with Podemos to form the electoral lists had left without strength all the space that is to the left of the PSOE. The debate on RTVE, especially the direct duel with Santiago Abascal, gave him a visibility that he had not had so far, further proof of the importance of these formats. Surely he would like one more day of campaigning... and more debates.
Vox.On the downside but to his own. Abascal's party arrives at the elections with low expectations (it now has 52 deputies) but with the probable ace up its sleeve of having the key for Feijóo to govern. In fact, Vox has been more protagonist for what it can be (partner of the PP) than for what it has done or said in this campaign. He had the spotlight on the first day, when he presented an electoral program more of the early twentieth century than the twenty-first. Since then it seems that he waits at the counter to tell the PP how much the bill amounts.
This campaign has also had some surprising findings.
Lies are now corrections or inaccuracies. The socialist candidate has assured in these days prior to 23-J that he does not tell lies, but "rectifies". He said it, yes, with self-confidence. And Feijóo, also hunted in the same venial sin, has affirmed that he does not lie, that, in any case, he commits "inaccuracies". He said it, moreover, angrily.
Zapatero is no longer Bambi. Former President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has had a leading role in this campaign, the most prominent of the PSOE after Sánchez. But he has been another Zapatero, far from the character of Bambi with which he identified in the past. Brave, incisive, forceful... he has transformed into Shere Khan, the evil tiger from The Jungle Book.
A misbehaved González Pons. He always gave the impression that Esteban González Pons was an example of the most liberal and modern PP, but in this campaign he has highlighted his misguided, bravado profile of those who solve the problems of Spain, with a toothpick in his mouth, in 15 minutes. His attitude with Minister Diana Morant in a local debate was simply blushing.
The shadow of Golden Martial . The summer photos of Feijóo with the narco Marcial Dorado have been resurrected in this campaign. Years and years later, there is still no conclusive response from the PP leader about his relationship with him. This time he has argued that when he began to coincide with Dorado, in the mid-nineties of the last century, he did not know what he did because "there was neither Google nor the internet". Just today he said that when he met him he had been a "smuggler, never a drug trafficker." The truth is that to end the story sounds neither convincing nor reassuring. Nor definitive.
The silence of Iglesias. Against the odds it has been shown that there can be an electoral campaign without the former leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, being the main protagonist. Let's see on Monday 24...
TVE and diverse Spain. The debate on RTVE with representatives of seven parties was perhaps the most interesting of all there has been in this campaign. And the one that has best represented what today is the plurality of Spain: a country in which an ultranationalist like Iván Espinosa de los Monteros (Vox) and an independentist like Gabriel Rufián (ERC) can debate. With piques, boutades and provocations... But that's the essence of politics.
And one final consideration. The fragility of memory often pushes us to think that everything that is happening now (today, yesterday, last week) is unprecedented. The heat, the cold... or the dirt/cleanliness of election campaigns and the darkness/luminosity of presidential mandates. This has been a tough, ugly campaign, but another one. Far from what was experienced in the last term of Felipe González, when criticism rose to such an extreme level that "the stability of the State itself was touched," according to the former director of ABC Luis María Anson.
Spanish democracy has been suffering from fatigue for some time (overlapping crises, the challenges of secessionist parties, the populisms that strain the system...), but no greater than other countries around us. Of course we must be alert to those who wear it out, but so far it is a democracy that, thanks to the Constitution, allows the fitting of parties that want to end the Monarchy or the State of the autonomies. And perhaps that is the best lesson that Spanish democracy works. Day by day, vote by vote.
He receives every afternoon the bulletin Diario electoral, with the analysis of Ricardo de Querol, deputy director, and Luis Barbero, editor-in-chief editor.
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