At the entrance to the Seville Congress Palace where the 41st PSOE congress began this Friday, there are two enormous red arches that mark the passage between the street and the interior with a sign that says “enter from the left”, a twist on the PSOE motto.
PSOE are the Spanish workers socialist party, They have been in government longer than any other political party in modern democratic Spain.
One after another, the leaders who passed through them made similar ironic comments: “How good it is in here and how hard what is out there.” While the audience applaud them, encourage them, and take photos, the leaders cannot avoid the feeling of being in a castle besieged by a trickle of judicial decisions that has soured the phase prior to a congress that was originally designed to reinforce unity. and consecrate the absolute leadership of Pedro Sánchez after the five days in which he threatened to resign and the entire party suddenly realized that no one had the succession prepared.
Possible political repercussions
The statement by Juan Lobato, and the immediate leak of the conversation between the one who until Wednesday was the leader of the Madrid PSOE and the Chief of Staff of Óscar López, Pilar Sánchez Acera, marked the start of the congress and has the Government and the party in suspense over possible political repercussions.
Publicly, the Executive insists that it is “very calm,” according to María Jesús Montero, number two in the party. However, in private there is clear confusion and enormous indignation with Lobato, who is blamed for getting the Spanish Government into a mess that is very complicated to manage for a decision that no one understands, which is to go to a notary to record a private conversation. With a partner like Sánchez Acera and a great unknown about what is to come.
Different sources consulted insist that there is a lot of peace in La Moncloa because, although everyone assumes that Sánchez Acera will be charged, it cannot be proven that it was the Government that leaked the document of Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s boyfriend to the press, much less that He obtained it through the prosecutor’s office.
“It was not like that, and that is why there will never be proof that it was like that,” various leaders insist, despite the fact that the conversation between Lobato and Sánchez Acera may lead one to think otherwise. Deduction is one thing, and demonstration with evidence in a criminal proceeding is another, several members of the Government explain. And there those consulted are convinced that judicially the matter has no way forward.
They are also sure that Óscar López, Gómez Acera’s boss and more than likely the new leader of the PSOE in Madrid after the fall of Lobato, is completely out of this process because there will be no evidentiary element that leads to him.
But apart from these assurances that are conveyed on the judicial front, and that are yet to be demonstrated when the moment of truth arrives in the police reports and, above all, in the decisions of the magistrates, from a political point of view no one dares to deny the difficulty of the moment for a Government and a party that wakes up almost every day with negative judicial news and with several open processes that can still last several months.
Public and private messages
The congress will launch an indisputable message of “tightening the ranks”, of unity and support for Sánchez, from whom everyone expects a powerful and resistant speech on Sunday. But in private conversations you can see the concern about an increasingly unpredictable judicial panorama and not only because of judges with clear animosity towards the Government, as they see it in the PSOE, but also because of information from party colleagues like Lobato, who He is the one who has opened the last breach that could lead to the indictment of López’s Chief of Staff. And everything also happens in the PSM, a historical black hole of the PSOE, and Sánchez’s political territory.
During the congress, the Madrid delegates met and received a message of unity from the new president of the management company that replaces Lobato, Isaura Leal. “We ask for your understanding, we have to be able to overcome it,” he told them, according to sources present at the meeting.
Some leaders with less direct information trust that Sánchez Acera really has an absolutely closed and clear version to take to the judge when he calls her to testify. “You have to have everything accredited, this is very delicate,” says one.
“There is an almost coup d’état atmosphere,” some leaders privately exaggerate. “It is very ugly out there, more than ever, they will do anything to put an end to Sánchez, but here inside we are very clear that they will not be able to. People are on something else. There are good economic data, the management is good, there are votes in Congress and a party determined to hold on. We are going to govern for three more years, regardless of who it may be,” summarizes one leader.
The most widespread conviction is that despite everything, Sánchez and his people will find a way out, achieve the Budgets and consolidate the legislature. But they also assume that the road will be very hard to achieve it.
Montero herself followed this line when she accused Feijóo of “coup speech” in his attempt to “demolish, overthrow and overthrow” Sánchez while insisting that the important thing is not the leak, but that “Isabel Díaz Ayuso continues to live in a penthouse that has been paid for with tax fraud”, for her boyfriend’s apartment. It is the most general feeling within Congress and also among veteran leaders, who insist that they do not remember such an offensive in a long time. The nervousness is evident, but also the conviction that time will adjust things, especially because judicially there is no path for the majority of open cases.
But above all, the most informed leaders, those who are in charge of the response strategy or close to the president, insist that despite the spectacular nature of the judicial decisions, Víctor de Aldama’s accusations, and the revelations that Lobato has made, with his mobile phone, of the accusations of Sánchez’s wife and brother, of the accusation of the attorney general, everything is much more encapsulated than it seems and the processes will be unraveled because there is no definitive evidence in any of them.
