Those sceptical about everything happening, those dreaming of a third path, (allegedly, of course) irritated senior PP officials, senior Ciudadanos figures who naively believed there wouldn't be an agreement between PP's blue, their orange and the new party dressed in green, realpolitik or, to be more exact, politics based on specific interests looking more at the short term than the medium or long-term risks, the pact, it's here. A serious hit of realism for many, a forced necessity for others. Bad theatre for a return to the past that was always there, even though there are those who say it's better to have them in the fold than at the doors. The right unifies and shows its teeth under the motto there is one Spain, not 51, and if the Andalusian campaign was about Catalonia, the unscrupulous hard right prefers to abandon the centre to start its peculiar reconquista from the south.
Rivera (Cs) has done, most likely, the only thing he could do: put himself in the hands of PP and Vox. The opportunist Manuel Valls, who has been saying day after day that Ciudadanos wouldn't be able to reach any agreement with Vox, has suddenly fallen silent. At the time of writing, he's said nothing on Twitter. He even said that he'd prefer to lose the government. A warning for undecided voters in Barcelona: words are worth little and a vote for Valls has an uncertain final destiny. Like in Andalusia.
But the formal announcement of the agreement this Wednesday has one good side-effect: they've stopped messing around and we've avoided a long couple of months of people with good intentions and others with interests trying to prevent an agreement which was a done deal since the night of the election itself. Aznarism is back and Rajoyism is wilting. The FAES laboratory has its work cut out: to reproduce this political majority in Spain without it first devolving into a shouting match. José María Aznar can now gather his three white knights around a table to instruct them and his opinions are going to again be about as important as before.
And the left? Well, most likely, it will wither; at least PSOE, they won't know which side of history they have to be on. At least, this PSOE won't know, with many of its senior figures pursuing future agreements with Ciudadanos in the face of the inevitable and the fear of not having enough with Podemos, in whom, by the way, they don't have confidence either. And Europe? The one frightened to see the PP and Cs agreement with Vox will swallow it or look the other way. It's even possible that Jean-Claude Juncker, the clumsy president of the European Commission, could receive in his official office the president of Andalusia, something he didn't do with either Carles Puigdemont or Quim Torra. Spain, first.