Sánchez hopes that Illa’s investiture will allow him to change the script to calm Judge Peinado’s thunderous offensive

The fact that employment has reached an all-time high is hardly news anymore. It is not even a matter of debate in talk shows. And even less a reason for the opposition to criticise, except to introduce doubts: but work is not stable, but salaries are low, but contracts are precarious, but hours worked are the same, but… There is always a but, although the EPA reflects that there are 21.68 million people working, more than ever, and the INE maintains that there are 2.7 million unemployed, the lowest figure in a second quarter since 2008.

The Government is not able to dominate the narrative in the public sphere. And it will not be because there is no economic data that puts the strength of the labour market or the economy in black and white. With much less, others installed the mantra of the “economic miracle”. The fact is that the end of the session in the Congress of Deputies ended this week with two resounding defeats that, translated into the headlines of the synchronised media artillery of the right, are clear proof that “the legislature is exhausted and Sánchez is dead” (politically, it is understood). He will die as others died before him because from the first day that a president arrives at Moncloa, the time left for his mandate to end begins to be counted down, but not because his political adversaries decide so, unless they present and win a motion of censure.

Shall we talk about that? Who knows. Feijóo’s ways are inscrutable, as are those of Carles Puigdemont’s Junts, which are the ones who have to converge for that moment to arrive. But this president has been declared dead as many times as he has staged resurrection scenes, without the right having yet learned the lesson that with Sánchez, invoking the Apocalypse is not enough for the catastrophe to arrive. Nor does calling for elections almost daily mean that whoever has the remote control for the dissolution has any intention of pressing the button.

And yet the end of this session, which coincides with the first anniversary of the last general elections, has not been what Pedro Sánchez’s government would have wanted. His Junts partners have begun to redouble the pressure in Madrid when they see that Puigdemont’s dream of a repeat election in Catalonia is fading away in the face of the progress of negotiations between the PSC and ERC to invest Salvador Illa (probably the first week of August). The revenge has been to align with the PP and Vox to overturn the objectives of budgetary stability in the Lower House. The socialists knew about the “no” to the reform of the immigration law, but they did not see coming that the neo-convergents had the intention of blowing up, as it was, the first stone of the Budgets for 2025. The blow was unexpected, although they believe that it responds to something circumstantial and that, after the summer, “the waters will return to their course because Puigdemont is not interested now in throwing himself into the hands of the right and the extreme right, despite many coincidences he has with both”.

“A succession of outrages”

Puigdemont’s warning has been followed by what the PSOE calls “a succession of outrages” and “procedural nonsense” by Judge Peinado, the head of court number 41 in Madrid who is investigating the professional activity of Begoña Gómez and who has summoned Pedro Sánchez to testify as a witness next Tuesday, the 30th. In a letter addressed to the investigating judge, the president had requested that, due to his position as head of government, his statement be “in writing”, a right that is recognised to him by the Criminal Procedure Law.

Sánchez learned “through the media” of the magistrate’s ruling, which summoned him to testify, and he also learned that the judge rejected his appeal, so he will be at Moncloa next Tuesday to record the statement on video with the assistance of officials from the Community of Madrid.

Hazte Oír has announced its decision to demonstrate in front of the doors of the presidential complex on the day of the declaration and, in anticipation of the Government Delegate determining an exact location according to security criteria that does not suit the organization, the Municipal Police in charge of Mayor Martínez Almeida stood last Friday at the doors of the Moncloa to examine the area. “This is the extent of the synchronization between the instructor, the complainants and the Madrid administrations governed by the PP,” denounce socialist sources.

Begoña Gómez’s defense attorney, Antonio Camacho, has filed an appeal with the Madrid Court to bring forward the meeting scheduled for September 30, in which they will study Begoña Gómez’s appeal requesting that the case be closed, as well as that of the prosecutor, who is asking the court to definitively limit the investigation to the judge. He puts in writing up to eleven irregularities in Judge Peinado’s investigation, the first being that, with the case declared secret, the magistrate transferred the documentation presented by the two journalists who testified first, as well as the content of their statements, only to the only prosecution party at that time, which was Vox.

“A serious and clearly documented violation of the confidentiality of the proceedings,” Camacho asserts before also informing the Court that the Court has sent to the press of the High Court of Justice of Madrid the information of the people who were being summoned by various orders while the case was declared secret before the secrecy of the proceedings was lifted. He also mentions that at the time of taking the first statement from Begoña Gómez, Peinado informed her, in the same act, that there was a second complaint that had not been notified within this procedure because it had been admitted in different preliminary proceedings. And he adds that his client is punctually informed of the resolutions issued by the magistrate through the press and that, “only days later, she receives the notifications.”

In response to a statement made as pre-constituted evidence by the now investigated Juan Carlos Barrabés, he also summoned Begoña Gómez so that she could attend the same, stating that, if she did not appear at that statement, she would be arrested, despite the fact that Art. 449 bis of the Lecrim establishes the presence of the investigated as a right and not as a burden or obligation. All within the framework of a procedure that Camacho, but also any criminal lawyer with the minimum rigor, understands as “mutant”, since it has been extended “without specifying or specifying in a contradictory way the object of the procedure”.

To be more clear: neither Begoña Gómez nor her defence know at this point what specific fact she is being investigated for, while the right has managed to ensure that in this thunderous end of the year there is no talk in public conversation about anything other than the “Begoña Gómez case” which the PSOE has dubbed the “Peinado case”. The socialists are now speaking openly of “an assault on the Moncloa” synchronised “between the investigating judge who is investigating Begoña Gómez and the political and media right” who are seeking to bring the president before the Supreme Court and they suspect that the investigating judge “is acting out of very specific interests”.

In any case, Sánchez is faced with a complicated situation for the umpteenth time, and not only because of what Judge Peinado decides. He also has before him the titanic task of reaching an agreement with ERC in a matter of days to appoint the socialist Salvador Illa as president of the Generalitat and prevent Puigdemont’s party from blowing up the legislature with their seven votes. And, although today in Moncloa they do not see the former president making a pact with those who have tooth and nail opposed the application of the amnesty, there is concern both about what Junts may decide and about the implacable offensive of the right in the institutions and in certain judicial instances.

Their bet, not without risk, is to prioritize Illa’s investiture over any other consideration, although the agreement with ERC may embolden Pugidemont. The entente with the Republicans is pending to close the last loose ends, but in Moncloa they believe that it will allow them to somehow introduce a twist to this thunderous end of the year decreed by Peinado with the declaration of Sánchez as a witness next Tuesday.

And beyond the recovery of Catalonia for socialism and the fact that the independence movement has lost the Generalitat for the first time in ten years, a Government headed by Salvador Illa would put the finishing touch to Sánchez’s strategy and would mean the culmination of the strategy of détente and commitment to coexistence that the President of the Government deployed in Catalonia since he arrived at Moncloa and that has managed to deactivate the secessionist movement. The socialists call it “normalisation”.