The electoral strategy of Pedro Sánchez is to assume that he will not be able to govern alone and that his only possibility of staying at the head of La Moncloa is a reissue of the bicolor Government. He evidenced it last week during the debate of the investiture motion, in which he shared prominence with Yolanda Díaz in an attempt to strengthen the image of understanding with his government partner, Unidas Podemos, and now he tries to make pedagogy so that the message sinks in.

"The citizens have understood that we are going to go to coalition formulas. There is no other," said the Spanish president in an informal conversation with journalists during the trip to China to meet with his counterpart in the Asian giant, Xi Jinping. And he points out the two factors that, in his opinion, make up this political board without alternative: the fragmentation of the vote and that the minority parties have opted to claim quotas of power in exchange for their parliamentary support.

In this context, Sánchez considers that in the general elections at the end of May what is at stake is the dilemma between "a much more competitive left-wing candidacy" and another that oscillates between "weaknesses" and – paraphrasing Ramón Tamames – the "extremes", in reference to the PP and Vox. While he shows that he does put his cards on the table, he veiledly accuses Alberto Núñez Feijóo of keeping the ace up his sleeve that if necessary he will govern with the party of Santiago Abascal because, according to the president's forecast, the opposition leader also has no chance of achieving an absolute majority.

Although his hectic schedule outside Spain leads him to embark on Thursday his third international tour in a week, Sánchez has also activated the electoral mode for a year with triple appointment with the polls that will begin with the regional and municipal elections on May 28. His intention is to have "enough space" in a campaign in which Catalonia will be one of his priorities with the argument that "time gives reason to the policy of reunion", in reference to the deflation of the independence conflict.

In fact, after landing back from his express visit to Beijing, the president plans to attend this Sunday an act of the PSC in Hospitalet de Llobregat. In addition, among his most realistic objectives he has placed the recovery of the Mayor's Office of Barcelona, for which he trusts a lot in the "possibilities" of his candidate, Jaume Collboni, with a view to leading the coalition to which, according to the polls, the Ciudad Condal will also be doomed again.

In the national sphere, Sánchez has insisted that, for the first time in an "unprecedented context" marked by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, an "understanding between the lefts" has been achieved, which "has always been historically more complex". In this sense, he has downplayed the fact that the Minister of Social Rights and member of the 'purple' quota of his Government, Ione Belarra, did not appear on Tuesday at a press conference to explain his Housing Law and has also avoided explicitly supporting Yolanda Díaz in her struggle with Podemos to lead the political space to the left of the Socialists.

The president, likewise, has described as "match point" the agreement for the reform of pensions, which will be approved this Thursday in Congress, and that together with the labor reform considers that they have been measures of "high voltage" in which the opposition expected that "the failure" of the Government and that in themselves "justify" the legislature, because "they decide on the disbursement of European funds". For this reason, he has criticized the "regrettable image" that in his opinion Feijóo has given when going to Brussels to "criticize everything".

Sánchez has also appealed to the "responsibility" of the CEOE to sit down to negotiate with the unions the income pact. And what he has not wanted to pronounce on is the decision of the Supreme Court to force the readmission of General Diego Pérez de los Cobos dismissed by his Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska: for that he says he will wait to read the sentence.

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  • Yolanda Diaz
  • Ione Belarra
  • Can
  • Pedro Sanchez
  • Alberto Núñez Feijóo
  • United We Can
  • China
  • Xi Jinping