Corruption Manual

Pedro Sánchez dedicated all these phrases to Mariano Rajoy before removing him from power with a vote of no confidence. Today we know that these rulings were not based on any ethical principles and that Sánchez, in the same circumstances or worse, clings to his chair like a cat to a mat. We now know that if he had commissioned his Manual of Resistance to the inner circle that brought him to power, they would have served as a perfect Manual of Corruption.

Sánchez is not a victim of Koldo, Santos, or Ábalos, because these three figures are key to explaining his rise to power. After what has been revealed about the fraud in the primaries, it can be said that Sánchez is more of a product of these individuals. It's hard to believe that in all these years, neither he nor anyone around him noticed that this type of collaborator wasn't the most suitable to lead the changes. It's hard to believe that someone didn't tell him there was a certain Koldo who was a disgrace.

The worst thing about Sánchez isn't that he's been looking the other way, at best, since coming to power while his trusted people fueled the alleged criminal organization. The worst thing is that he's been the one who's gone to the greatest lengths to protect suspects, weakening the oversight systems.

He did so when he allowed the entire troupe of subordinates who accompanied him to attack the State Security Forces with explicit orders because they were investigating the corruption surrounding them. And not only because he called them patriotic police and worse to discredit them, but also because of the maneuvers the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) launched, such as the one carried out by Leire Díez to seek information to neutralize Antonio Balas, the lieutenant colonel of the UCO (United Nations University) who was in charge of investigating the family's irregularities.

The PSOE has temporarily removed Leire, but, in light of what is becoming known, we must begin to think that it did so not so much to punish her as to protect her and itself. The Prime Minister was also looking out for the alleged criminal organization when, instead of attempting to verify the veracity of some information, he threatened and attempted to discredit the media outlets that denounced malpractice. And the Prime Minister has worked to ensure the impunity of the entire plot, not only by harassing the judges who were opening cases against the alleged corrupt officials, but also by persecuting the entire judiciary, which the Moncloa government has irresponsibly called into question.

This week has made it more evident than ever how important it is for any democracy to have State Security Forces and Corps that pursue crime wherever it comes from, with a pluralistic media ready to scrutinize the government's actions, and with an independent judiciary prepared to judge the what, not the who. All these weapons of the rule of law were threatened by Sánchez during his escape, and today more than ever we know that they must be protected if we want to preserve a true democracy.

With the Santos Cerdán scandal, the electoral base of the Sánchez regime has completely collapsed and threatens to plunge the historic PSOE into misery, despite Tezanos's CIS (National Electoral Commission) claims to the contrary. No one but a genius believes this party can continue to garner support under the conditions the public polling institute claims.

The reasonable estimate is that Sánchez has been bleeding electorally dry since the summer of 2023, primarily due to the first granting of an Amnesty Law, the possibility of which had always been denied, and the negotiation with ERC over the quota for Catalonia, which breaks the foundation of inter-territorial solidarity that has been one of the hallmarks of socialism since its inception. Now, the cases of high-level corruption plaguing the party and the president's family circle only represent the final catharsis.

A good number of socialist believers have suddenly lost faith after discovering that Sánchez has incorporated corruption into his project from the first day he introduced himself to society as Mr. Clean. The Prime Minister is now a political corpse whose decomposition instills a worse stench in Spanish society with each passing day, and there's no miracle he can reverse this. Despite everything, Sánchez won't give up and call elections for several reasons.

The first and most important reason is that, for all the reasons explained, he has no chance of governing again. If he already managed to gain access to the Moncloa Palace in 2023, despite losing, propped up by a conglomerate of parties of such diverse nature that they have made governability unviable, he now has no room for reestablishment. The second reason is that outside the Moncloa Palace, he has far fewer possibilities of controlling his future. If he were to throw in the towel, he wouldn't be able to complete, among so many other things, the tailor-made judicial reform that Félix Bolaños is currently working on, nor would he be able to continue manipulating all the institutions he believes he will need to cover his escape route after the storm.

The third reason he won't go to the polls is because he knows his partners will support him under any circumstances. Gabriel Rufián already predicted, immediately after the Cerdán scandal broke, that ERC will continue to support Sánchez unless it's proven that "they've taken him by the bucketful." What does "bucketful" mean to Rufián? Another of his partners, the president of the PNV, Aitor Esteban, also considered a few hours ago that Sánchez had provided sufficient explanations, and even excused him, saying that with his response, he had turned what were merely reports from the UCO into a verdict. The reality is that both Rufián and Esteban continue to support Sánchez because they know that the weaker he is, the more affectionate he is with them.

The understanding and permissiveness toward the corruption of Sánchez's followers displayed by Sánchez's supporters clashes with the concern within the Socialist Party itself. Regional leaders like Emiliano García-Page; socialist figures who are now marginalized, like Juan Lobato and Eduardo Madina; and long-standing figures like Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra believe that Sánchez's inevitable fall will drag down the PSOE and thousands of people who depend on the party in every region.

They are convinced that the longer Sánchez remains in La Moncloa at the mercy of his false friends, the greater the collapse of a historic organization will be. Everyone is currently advocating for early elections, which Sánchez will not provide, among other reasons because, as he said on Thursday, he is convinced that "this is not about me."

Would a vote of no confidence by the Popular Party be possible under these conditions? The PP leadership rules out this possibility because they are convinced it would be an exercise in melancholy that would give Sánchez air. The idea of ​​photographing his associates is not very appealing, among other reasons because at this point, anyone who doesn't yet know those who support and accompany Sánchez lives on another planet.