PREMIUM
LUCIA MÉNDEZ
@LuciaMendezEM
Madrid
Updated on Saturday, 2 January 2021 - 22:12
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Analysis to the Government.
The pandemic year that sewed the seams of the Frankenstein government
The premiere of the PSOE-Unidas Podemos coalition government came wrapped in the same optimism and joy of living as the gifts of the Kings of 2020 in homes throughout Spain.
The ministers of Pedro Sánchez showed their satisfaction and liked to make affectionate cuddles.
“In this government there are no Podemos ministers or socialist ministers.
This is a coalition government.
Each of the men and women of this team carries out a task, and that task has to be accountable to the Council regardless of the previous origin of anyone, "said the spokeswoman, María Jesús Montero, while looking at the Minister of Justice with complicity. Equality, Irene Montero.
At that time - 12 months and an eternity have passed - the PSOE and Unidas Podemos showed their great "joy, enthusiasm and responsibility" to govern in coalition and proclaimed that their relations were of "absolute normality", once all were seated comfortably in the Minister council.
That joy and that illusion have been evaporating as the pandemic destroyed all traces of political, economic and social normality.
Pedro Sánchez presides over a government - one of the largest in all of Europe - which is actually two, or even three if we count the ministers who go about their business without getting into politics.
Relations are not established between the two parties of the coalition -PSOE and Unidas Podemos-, but between two people: Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias, president and vice president of the Government.
A look inside the coalition Executive reveals that the management of the pandemic has produced personal and political wear between the members of the Government of the two parties, the result of a permanent confrontation between the PSOE and United We Can.
This is a first balance sheet carried out by the ministers consulted.
«It has been an extraordinary and turbulent year.
But if we compare the current situation with the dramatic months of March or April, we are much better, then we didn't even dream that there would be a vaccine in January and European funds.
At that time, almost all of us thought that the pandemic could take away this Government.
The fact that the president has not suffered appreciable personal wear and tear, nor has the PSOE's voting intention been altered, is politically the most relevant.
Pedro Sánchez has consolidated his political strength in very difficult times and the opposition does not take off.
Another different thing is how the ministers of the socialist area adjective the behavior of the minority partner of the Government, or, to put it better, the management of the leader of United We Can, Pablo Iglesias.
The vice president has become a headache for half the Cabinet.
“
Pablo Iglesias
started out very modest, actually in the meetings of the Council of Ministers he continues to be very modest because he only talks about political communication, but the worst instincts have come out.
Until the summer he kept his forms a bit, but he realized that his lack of specific management skills was penalizing him among his electorate and he needed more prominence to show that Podemos had some use in the Government.
And from then on, he made confrontation his only strategy.
It is evident that the vice president does not create a sense of team or promote the image of cohesion that would be necessary in the Government.
He lives in permanent confrontation and in daily conflict through the media and social networks, "say sources from the Executive sector most in conflict with Iglesias.
The vice president has been adding internal adversaries for months.
At this time, it maintains null relations with the vice presidents Carmen Calvo, Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera, the ministers of Defense, Margarita Robles;
of Education, Isabel Celáa;
of Foreign Affairs, Arantxa González Laya;
the head of Inclusion and Social Security, José Luis Escrivá;
and the Minister of Justice, José Manuel Campo.
Iglesias has collided with all of them.
The sources consulted assure that the Minister of Public Works, José Luis Ábalos, acts as a mediator between both parties.
«The Government has endured this level of conflict well.
Podemos spends a lot of time on machining and erosion, but has come across strong and rocky ministers with great political and managerial experience.
The conflict strategy is annoying, but it does not prevent you from doing things and there comes a time when you have to take it with philosophy and even with irony, “say the interlocutors of this newspaper.
Naturally, sources close to Vice President Iglesias offer a different account of the first year of the coalition.
“Permanent tension is not a chosen or designed strategy, but it has been shown to be effective when the Socialists fail to comply with the government agreement signed by the two parties.
In the minimum rent or in evictions.
The qualification of 'stubborn' by the finance minister is the best thing that could happen to the vice president.
He is used to pulses, battles and personal disqualifications, but in social conquests everything is worth it.
And when things get ugly, and sometimes they have, we have to remember that math is unforgiving.
Thirty-five seats are nothing outside the Government, but essential for the PSOE to continue governing and Sánchez to continue in La Moncloa.
The president is the one who has understood it best.
It is good for him to act as a referee, looking for the center.
Sánchez has known how to understand and manage the difficulties of a government in which no one believed a year ago.
In the opinion of Iglesias' collaborators, the vice president's most relevant triumph has been to blow up the possibility of an agreement with Citizens for Budgets.
Both the socialist ministers and those of
United We can
recognize that the last pulse of the year - the rise in the Minimum Wage - was lost by Pablo Iglesias because the President of the Government wanted to send a message that we have arrived here, once his vice president seemed to win all the battles.
“They were wrong to launch this pulse to the economic area, we depend a lot on the decisions of the EU.
And also on this occasion, vice president
Nadia Calviño
had to win
because
Pablo Iglesias
had already won many pulses.
Within the Government there are critical voices about the method that has been imposed when resolving the differences between the two partners.
The government pact monitoring commission, officially constituted after the agreement was signed, no longer meets.
It has been replaced by a heads-up between the president and vice president.
All the pulses end up at the table where they both sit, to eat or to manage their differences.
«Most of the time we ministers find out from the press what they are talking about and what they decide.
This is the most presidential government of democracy.
The two parties do not speak, the two leaders speak.
And they do not set a good example of participation in decisions or collegiate discussion within the Council of Ministers.
There are many examples of how the holders of a portfolio find out through the media about matters that directly affect them, “they point out from some ministries.
“It has become clear this year that in Spain there is no coalition culture in the Government.
But the president is right, we have rope for a while.
The coalition government will last and we will continue as before, surviving and supporting each other.
Pedro Sánchez would never have wanted to govern with Pablo Iglesias, but he has got used to it, like everyone else.
There is no choice but to resist, "say sources from the two government partners.
The toughest battle in the coming months will be that of pensions.
And there they cannot both win.
Illa: The man who knows how to suffer "
The appointment of Salvador Illa as the candidate of the PSC to the Catalans of 14-F- was a surprise for his fellow cabinet members.
The Minister of Health has been an unexpected political phenomenon due to his management of the pandemic.
His mettle in dramatic moments and his moderate demeanor have won him the sympathy of many people.
"The man who knows how to suffer".
This is how a colleague defines you.
Moncloa believes that Illa has a chance of winning the regional elections.
But the Minister of Health did not exactly jump with joy when Sánchez entrusted him with the candidacy
The political capital of Díaz
The Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has accumulated her own political capital outside of the party for which she was elected deputy and, most importantly, outside of Pablo Iglesias himself, who was the one who asked Sánchez to include her in the Government .
The agreements with the social agents and her moderate personality, so far from tension, conflict and inflammatory tweets, have made her a benchmark for the Spanish left.
And this produces jealousy - always inevitable in these cases - in other members of the Cabinet
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
PSOE
Pablo Iglesias
Pedro Sanchez
United we can
We can
Irene Montero
Nadia calviño
Spain
Teresa Ribera
Social Security
Maria Jesus Montero
Margaret Robles
Juan Carlos Campo
Jose Luis Ábalos
Jose Luis Escrivá
Isabel Celaá
Europe
Citizens
Carmen Calvo
PoliticsThe Government exhibits its crisis in full chaos before Christmas
GovernmentPablo Iglesias demands that Pedro Sánchez not lose power after the Budgets
Politics Moncloa is fed up and demands that Podemos not air the discrepancies
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