Although anything can happen in politics, Pedro Sánchez this Tuesday presented a document with 370 proposals for an agreement on a government programme which is, first and foremost, an invitation for nobody outside of his party's ranks to vote for him for one reason or another. In other words: playing to the gallery and a great electoral ad. It must be acknowledged that the acting prime minister aces that. Because, let's see: can anyone really believe he's working for an alliance with Unidas Podemos? Or that the pro-independence parties can swallow what he's offering them as if it's nothing, providing him their votes in the investiture in exchange for nothing or, worse still, knowing that everything is going to remain as bad as it has been so far?
They slam the door in the face of Unidas Podemos' non-negotiable condition of a coalition government with two arguments: there's no confidence to realise it and it would be two governments in one. Forgetting on the way that that's what voters wanted, at least on 28th April, when they awarded him a meagre result of 123 of the 350 seats in the chamber. It's not a problem of trust, as Sánchez says, rather one of political majorities to be able to govern calmly. You can only slam the door in someone's face when you know you've got no interest in agreeing anything with them or when you sense they'll have no option but to give in. For the moment, we're facing the first scenario.
There's worse treatment for the Catalan independence movement, especially because he needs one of the two parties, Esquerra or JxCat, to end up voting for him, because even if he does end up convincing UP it wouldn't be enough. There will be neither a referendum, nor dialogue on a referendum. Very near the end of the whole document, in point 350 of 370, it says: "We propose moving forwards towards a unifying model for the state, in which diversity, equality and solidarity are compatible values. A model in which the central government guarantees cohesion through loyalty to the exercising of the functions which the Constitution sets out for the autonomous communities; in which the different administrations enjoy adequate funding, act transparently, collaborate with each other and act with institutional loyalty. In this model there's no room for a self-determination referendum which the Constitutional Court has found to be contrary to the Constitution and which, from a political perspective, provokes the fracturing of society". That's all it puts into writing over the most serious territorial crisis Spain has faced since the approval of its Constitution in 1978.
It does not appear, therefore, that there's a path for Unidas Podemos or the pro-independence parties. Nor does it seem that Pablo Casado's Partido Popular or Albert Rivera's Ciudadanos will end up giving him the votes he needs. But the acting prime minister remains happy even if he says exactly the opposite: he's ever closer to the objective he's never hidden which is none other than a new election no 10th November giving him a more generous majority in order to govern.