Politics

It’s been PSOE day in Spain today. No other topic has made headlines (even with Puigdemont confirming a referendum on Catalan independence for September 2017).

It’s like a supernova event: we’re witnessing the implosion of one of Spain’s historical parties. The longest governing political group seems to be committing suicide, after its two halves (pro-establishment and pro-gressive) have started a total war which seems to be leading the socialists down the way of PASOK. But still, Pedro Sánchez is holding on, and while his chances are slim, he may still make it through the storm. What will become of his ship, that’s another story.

While everyone (me included) expected it to go this way:

It has been more like this:

So now it’s not clear whether Pedro Sánchez is still Secretary General or not. In any case, his group has proposed a schedule to bring the socialist bases to the polls and choose a new leader (vote would be on 23 October, and a Federal Congress would be held on 23 November).

Sánchez’s rivals says he has no legitimacy to propose anything. He has been referred to as the “former secretary general”. The rules seem to be on Sánchez’s side, though, as there is no explicit reference to him or his team having to step down, even after 17 members of the board resigned yesterday (which counting two previous resignations and the unrelated death of a member a time back, makes more than half of the executive organ).

All this responds to the dual nature of PSOE I’ve been talking about in previous posts. Internal tensions have finally ripped the party apart, but they’ve been there for a long time. PSOE has two types of voters:

• Older, rural voters who are conservative but don’t identify with PP’s ultra-conservative, catholic tradition inherited directly from Franco). More prevalent in the South of the country.
• Urban, younger voters who are progressive but think that other left-wing parties such as Podemos and IU are way too radical for the stable running of the country. More prevalent in Madrid and the Mediterranean coast.

Although the last (terrible) results of PSOE in Galicia and the Basque Country have helped accelerate the times, the true reason behind this rupture is the party’s nature.

Rajoy will reap the highest benefits: Broken PSOE’s party discipline, he will have it easy to collect the 11 abstentions he needs from among the party’s MPs.