Pedro Sánchez's final exam

Political news, which is more of a judicial and news-focused piece, judging by the bulk of its content, refuses to accept that we're in the throes of late summer and should let us take a break from so much scandal. The "it used to be less hot" we hear all the time from everyone's lips has an equivalent among old-school journalists: "It used to be that hardly anything happened in the summer." And they're right. One day into August, the news spotlight should be on a blue shark stranded on any beach or the plague of British tourists who follow a diet based solely on alcohol and then fearlessly jump into hotel pools directly from their room balconies.

However, since we started sweating, we've gone from the pre-summer case of Leire Díez, the PSOE plumber, to the Cerdán affair. And from this, without interruption, to the Cristóbal Montoro scandal, and finally, for now, with the Supreme Court's decision to send the Attorney General of the State, Alvaro García Ortiz, to trial.

It is not enough to form a majority to be invested if there are no budgets afterwards.

In between, as a garnish, we've heard the ineffable Koldo García asking for a Cuban for the weekend—which you paid for with your taxes—or lecturing a company employee about the need to show off your ass and nipples to a date. To top it all off, Koldo added that all women are whores, and to illustrate this, he explained that all it takes is five hundred dollars to get what you want from them. I'm a feminist because I'm a socialist, is a phrase we once heard from former minister José Luís Ábalos. Not even the trio of Mariano Ozores, Fernando Esteso, and Andrés Pajares went so far in the era of the "destape" (unmasking). To add, and almost anecdotal, let's add to the mix the war over fake resumes that cost Noelia Núñez, the young PP hopeful promoted by Alberto Núñez Feijóo at his party's recent extraordinary congress, her resignation. And now he has his counterpart in the government commissioner for the reconstruction of the damage caused by the flood, chosen by Pedro Sánchez, José María Ángel, who falsified his university degree to access a civil service position decades ago. The latter, by the way, has yet to resign. There are days when it's hard not to be carried away by the literary cliché of defining Spain as a Valle-Inclanian farce.

The end-of-season summary presents us with a country that has become politically and institutionally a mess. Beyond the judicial agenda and the "you plus" arguments between the two major parties, legislative activity also remains exceptional. Laws whose introduction is postponed due to a lack of guarantees for their approval or outright rejected by Congress are the order of the day. Thus, the feeling that the Socialist government's edifice is threatening collapse is increasingly shared, something that the polls are also beginning to confirm. Meanwhile, Pedro Sánchez is holding on, yes. But with such a diminished credibility that his speeches no longer have the invigorating effect they once did. The fighter remains standing, but with his face, and who knows, maybe even his spirit, tremendously damaged by the blows that have landed him square in the face.

This is the panorama with which we leave Ferragosto , to put it in the Italian way. Upon his return, and barring what happens on the corruption front and in the courts, the government will have an opportunity to demonstrate that it is indeed fit to continue. Sánchez has promised to present a budget. It will be the first time he has done so in this term. But that will not be enough. He must get it approved. If not, the government will enter with honors into the realm of democratic illegitimacy if elections are not called. It is not enough to secure a majority to be sworn in if, afterward, public finances cannot be approved even once during an entire term. That will be Sánchez's test. If he fails, he will be able to continue resisting, of course. But each and every one of those who accuse him of being cynical every time he tries to present himself in a speech as the man who intends to save Spain from authoritarianism will be absolutely right. The 2026 budget is a final exam.