Three days after the 2015 elections, on the eve of Christmas Eve, Rajoy summoned Sánchez in La Moncloa. It was bitterly cold December. Not tough, but neither to stay stiff in the air and in the body of a king. That day, Sánchez definitely sharpened his countenance and armored his features. In the photos of that morning, the Sánchez that he already was suddenly emerged and we could not see why he was still covered by his party apparatus.
Rajoy’s face reflected his decay and resignation. Sánchez sentenced Susana Díaz: “I mark the red lines.” He was determined to come to an understanding with Iglesias and only after a few days he swallowed the mandate of his Federal Committee not to include the separatists in his tartana. We did not realize then that he began to build his fertile fiction: “Voting ‘no’ for Rajoy is to comply with the Spanish mandate, that is, yes to change,” he assured after a tense meeting with many silences. He did not listen to Rajoy’s proposal. He refused a coffee and left the date early. He waited on the steps, without a coat, for his car to pick him up.
In the PP they believed that it was an ordeal and he would reconsider. But Sánchez had been clear: the PSOE will explore “all options [para] a government of change, progressive and that practices dialogue”. He never backed down from his clamorous and successful contradiction, from his relentless version of the Tinell Pact. Rajoy insisted with discouragement: he proposed a great coalition, State pacts at symbolic height of those of 1977 and offered Sánchez the Vice-Presidency of the Government. It was in vain. In the June 2016 elections, Rajoy revalidated his victory and improved his results, Sánchez worsened them and, after being elusive and impolite, picked up only once the phone to Rajoy to reiterate his “no is no”. The deceased PSOE could have solved the subsequent problem by opening a disciplinary and expulsion file for Sánchez – he wanted to cheat in an internal vote – but he was overwhelmed by the imprint of Iglesias . Did’nt dared.
The rest is all yesterday and melancholy: Feijóo won on 23-J and proposed to Sánchez a great state agreement to jointly address Spain’s pressing problems over the next two years and form a government without separatist interference. He illustrated his exhibition with an image of The Moncloa Pacts -from the moment Carrillo signed them-. Sánchez narrowed his eyes as usual and showed Feijóo his four wild cards -ERC, Bildu, PNV and Junts-. In her appearance, the minister spokesperson missed a truth when she was preparing to set up a troll: “she offers us a pact with Vox to repeal sanchismo in two years.” The pact that Feijóo extended is not with Vox -although not excluded- but, certainly and basically, the agreement proposed by the PP consists of repealing sanchismo, since it is based on the regeneration of the institutions, the distancing of the independence demands and the end of their privileges.
Rajoy and Feijóo -as leaders of the first political force- and Rivera and Casado have offered in different circumstances -during the rise and fall of the so-called new politics and against the secessionist threat– claim the virtuousness of consensus and emulate the Moncloa Pacts. Sánchez always found shortcuts: since 2015 there have been five general elections, Sánchez won two – only in one did he get the investiture and he held half in alarm – but he has governed, of the almost eight years, more than five. The desirable and fertile Spain, the one that converges with a view to prosperity, is not a matter of Sánchez, whose height is measured by that of his allies. He adjusts his beret and continues to swagger at his edge.