For months there has been a virtual unanimity in the response of high-ranking socialists regarding electoral expectations: “We hold out, but the problem is what happens to our left.” That is the summary of the responses of different interlocutors of the PSOE, who are concerned about the crisis of their leftist partners and increasingly fear that the positions of the second vice president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, and Podemos are irreconcilable. In the socialist wing they have been looking at the crisis that the space to their left is going through for some time, but now they recognize that they have taken a “qualitative leap” by publicly exposing their positions. What they cross their fingers for is so that they do not break in the face of the general elections and there is no “distraction of the vote” that, due to the distribution of the remains in the electoral system, frustrates the expectations that they still have in Pedro Sánchez’s party.
In Moncloa and Ferraz they are convinced that they have managed to stop the blow they suffered after the arrival of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to the presidency of the PP and in the first stages of the crisis left by the war in Ukraine. They consider the turning point to have occurred in the month of July, after the debate on the state of the nation, in which Pedro Sánchez printed a turn to the left in his speech that has been maintained until now, with the defense of taxes energy companies and banks with taunts like the one he launched last Friday at former Minister Luis de Guindos for tripping him up from his destiny at the European Central Bank.
The polls reflect the narrowing of the lead that the PP managed to get over the PSOE after Feijóo’s arrival in Genoa, including the Simple Logic poll published by elDiario.es.
“We are going to win the municipal ones. That is the test,” says a minister about the improvement in the expectations issued by the Socialists. Sánchez trusts his survival largely to the pull of the presidents and mayors of the PSOE allowing him to win that first trial by fire. “The map is going to be quite similar to that of 2019,” predicts a leader with command in the square in Ferraz. The socialists cling, since the recent bumps in Madrid or Castilla y León, to the idea that those who govern have consolidated.
“If we don’t win the municipal ones, there would be no room to recover,” recognizes one of the sources consulted about the possibility that the PP prevails. In any case, the other asset that they take advantage of at the state level is that Feijóo can only get to Moncloa supported by Vox since no formation, no matter how much pampering it does to the PNV, was going to enter into an equation in the that is the extreme right. But also in that leg they breathe with some relief because they see Santiago Abascal’s game in low hours.
The great concern in the ranks of the PSOE is what could happen to their left given the distance that separates Yolanda Díaz and Podemos and that is becoming more explicit. The former leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, has taken advantage of his last public appearances to attack the vice president. “There were many militants of Podemos who told Díaz “respect us”, that what you have done in the Ministry of Labor, which is historic, is thanks to the fact that there was a party that defended you as a minister and it was Podemos,” Iglesias said from the microphones of Cadena Ser 24 hours after having warned that “there is no speech more reactionary than the one that says that the problem is the parties”, which is precisely the idea that Díaz defends.
Although Ferraz publicly limits himself to showing respect for the organic issues of the rest of the parties, the fear of the consulted leaders is that the Sumar platform that the vice president is preparing will not integrate the formation led by Ione Belarra and that they will end up going separately. Some of the sources consulted even doubt that Díaz will reach the general elections. “We are facing another Errejón, unless he reached a cordial agreement with Podemos,” reflects a territorial leader. “It will go through neighborhoods, there will be places where it will be possible,” says a socialist leader, who attributes the current situation to the “tension” prior to the configuration of the electoral candidacies.
Yolanda Díaz is also looked at in some of the autonomies presided over by the PSOE, such as the Valencian Community, where they hope to revalidate the Botanical Pact. In the PSPV they believe that Compromís will endure with Joan Baldoví despite his internal problems, but they are more concerned about the situation of Podemos, which needs 5% of the votes to obtain representation in the Cortes. “They have it complicated. It depends on whether Yolanda supports them or not,” explain sources close to Ximo Puig: “Yolanda’s clarification is fundamental. Normally, Podemos and IU go and Yolanda supports that space.” However, IU is exploring an agreement with Compromís and Más Madrid for the regional ones.
In the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol is confident that Podemos and Més will endure, despite the fact that both forces will have new headliners. In the PSIB they recognize a certain nervousness about these changes at a time when Podemos is “down”, but they hope to be able to add or, at least, have the path clear because the Pi, which currently has three seats, does not join with the PP and Vox. It is the same situation that Javier Lambán is going through, where the amalgamation of forces that make up the Cortes de Aragón, including regionalist parties, declare themselves incompatible with an agreement that includes the extreme right.
Another of the cards that the PSOE believes it has in its hand is the lack of powerful candidates by the PP. It occurs in Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura, where Emiliano García-Page and Guillermo Fernández Vara govern with an absolute majority, and also in Asturias, where Adrián Barbón assumes that he will reissue the presidency of the Principality. La Rioja is the square in which Ferraz saw more complications, as it is a traditional bastion of the right, but they trust everything to the management of European funds and the poor situation of the PP in the region.
