On Monday, meeting with Volodimir Zelensky and signing of a military support agreement worth 1 billion euros for Ukraine. On Tuesday, approval of the recognition of the Palestinian state in the Council of Ministers. On Wednesday, Begoña Gómez. The PSOE campaign has exploded ten days before the polls. The Government loses control of the agenda and is forced to row against the current with the controversy over the wife of the President of the Government gaining new momentum. In Moncloa they claim to have “zero concern”, because they maintain that “there is no case”, but the blows of the “no case” threaten, at the very least, to distort the script that they had designed from the Executive. And it was none other than putting the focus on Sánchez's international agenda and the PP's pacts with the extreme right.
On Tuesday, socialist sources already had to come out to react to Begoña Gómez's status as “investigated” after the secrecy of the case was lifted. Yesterday, at the decision of the Provincial Court of Madrid to endorse the procedure followed by the Investigative Court number 41 of the capital. The latter represents a setback for the aspirations of the Executive, which hoped that the appeal filed by the Madrid Provincial Prosecutor's Office would take effect and shelve the investigation. However, the Court supports Judge Juan Carlos Peinado and considers that there are “objective indications” to continue investigating the public aid that businessman Carlos Barrabés received and whether, in these awards, the letters of recommendation that Gómez sent from his office had any impact. chair at the Complutense University.
Socialist sources point out that the Court's decision does not go into the substance of the issue and point out that the report from the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard that exonerated the president's wife has not been taken into account. In any case, the fact that the case is still alive is detrimental to the interests of the PSOE. Sources consulted consider that this “is not going to move a vote” and that “there is no one who is going to stop voting for us on this issue”, but they do not hide that they have lost control of the agenda, which they had been setting for weeks. “It forces us to react and change the framework”, assures a consulted leader. From the offensive and taking the initiative of the debate, to a defensive attitude.
It is yet to be gauged whether this has an impact on the vote, the PSOE had had several positive weeks, rising in the polls and reducing the vote difference with the PP. The objective with which the socialists are presenting themselves in the European elections was within reach, forcing a “technical tie”, that is, being a couple of points away from the popular ones, so as to disarm Feijóo's argument of presenting the elections as a plebiscite for the figure of Sánchez.
To achieve this, the strategy of polarizing with Vox had worked, fueling the diplomatic conflict with the president of Argentina, Javier Milei, and exhibiting international leadership with the approval of the recognition of the State of Palestine and receiving attacks from the Government of Israel, as well as with the release of the military support agreement for Ukraine. Sánchez thus exhibited his best profile, that of an international leader. The suit in which he feels most comfortable and that allows him to avoid the wear and tear of national politics. But the “mud”, as he himself calls it, has once again taken over the national debate and the socialists are forced to react.
Today in Barakaldo
And as a first reaction, Sánchez is not going to hide. The president will support Teresa Ribera today at the Barakaldo (Bilbao) rally. Her presence was confirmed early yesterday afternoon and was not previously planned. The socialist leader is also obliged to show his face and deploy all his artillery to defend himself against this “mud machine.”. “They seek to break me, but they are ready,” she repeats, in parliament, and she will also seek that complicity with her supporters to seek the greatest possible containment of damage. It so happens that today's act also coincides with the final approval – after the veto in the Senate – of the amnesty law. Both the “Begoña case” and the forgiveness of the “procés” are two of the pillars of the PP's strategy for these Europeans. In Moncloa they believe that the effect of the amnesty is already “amortized” and that the results in Catalonia have contributed to this, because they have shown that the Catalans support the detente policy that the Government has carried out in the region. However, elections, like the European ones, with a single constituency, will serve to assess whether the rest of Spain shares this diagnosis.
In Moncloa they also seek to defuse the controversy over the president's wife and hoped that the PP would call Sánchez to appear in the Senate next week. The decision to delay it until after 9J It is read in the socialist headquarters as a symptom of weakness of the PP, which does not want to risk that a Sánchez who defends himself well in this type of appearances ends up being strengthened. The boomerang effect.