Now that we have the call for the general elections in Spain for November 29, a few thousand people are going to dress as candidates. To opt for the representation of national sovereignty in Congress and the Senate.
It will be good to remember what the word candidate means. It comes from the color of the clothing of those who, candid and naive, hoped to benefit, with their white tunics, from the vote of their fellow citizens in ancient Rome, in the election of consuls of the Republic.
Are the candidates so candidates? The real truth is that when one dresses like this, everything else stops being interesting and we only think about the day when the new parliament can be formed, thus answering one of the questions that can be asked: “Am I really good for something? Will I be able to represent a part of my people in a magical areopagus at times, a hive of passions at other times, and also of very long tedious sessions waiting for a always decisive vote?”
That next November 29, I will remember June 15, 1977, when the candidates waited for the results amidst doubts and uncertainties, pending a future that was about to arrive.
I spent those hours of restlessness in the Sierra de Guadarrama, as a space for thought and stillness. And I took a book under my arm, to read it in the expectation that lay ahead: “Narcissus and Godmund”, the great novel by Hermann Hesse. Due to the emotion of the moment and the circumstances of that time, on November 29th I will remember that wait that the two companions who crossed medieval Germany in the midst of the most terrible Black Plague happily suffered. And in the end, they emerged victorious, leaving the illness behind, entering the House of the Word, in the midst of dreams and ideas.