Pedro Sánchez has decided to put an end to the current Spanish legislature abruptly and to use his failures in passing a budget and in negotiating with Catalonia as the starting point of an election campaign based on three lines: it is only I who can hold back the Spanish right and provide a shield against Vox; it is I who holds the political centre, the Popular Party (PP) having abandoned it, and Ciudadanos (Cs) never having been there; and I didn't give in to Catalan independence and its demands, which put the unity of Spain in danger. If the no-confidence motion last June might have suggested there was an opportunity for a different Spain, for sitting down at the negotiation table to listen to Catalonia's demands and then starting a bilateral discussion, eight months have been more than enough time to see that there was not even a real will to open dialogue and reach agreements. The disaster of such a basic figure as the rapporteur is the clearest example of all this.
If the 2018 no-confidence motion was the greatest political failure of Mariano Rajoy, the calling of a general election is the most serious failure of Pedro Sánchez. Three elections in Spain in the last four years ― 2015, 2016 and 2019 - reflect the inability of the two major Spanish parties to find a solution to the conflict with Catalonia. Sánchez is throwing in the towel, regardless of the delicate position at which Spanish democracy is situated, with its eyes fixed intently on the Supreme Court trial of the nine Catalan political prisoners. Or, perhaps rather, he is aware that with two consecutive election processes ―on April 28th, a Spanish general election; and on May 26th, four weeks later, elections for municipalities, for 13 of Spain's autonomous communities communities and for the European Parliament - the trial will lose interest for the international media.
In any case, Pedro Sánchez has called an end to the legislature because he wanted to. Because it's in his personal interest and probably that of his party. Believing that there is a window of opportunity in the face of the cold fusion process that PP, Cs and Vox have carried out, a de facto merger into a single political space. The surveys give Sánchez slightly less than the support he needs, he is not in his sweet spot, but he has a chance. So why did he not present his own confidence motion after the budget was defeated (as did president Puigdemont in the Catalan Parliament in an identical situation), which the Socialist leader would have won without difficulty? Why not wait a few months for the general election? Because, according to all the studies, Spain is beginning an economic slowdown. And that's a mild way of putting it, avoiding any mention of the crisis that the macroeconomic estimates are beginning to hint at for the last quarter of this year. Sánchez does not want the economic crisis to be his grave, as it was for Zapatero in 2011.
Sánchez trusts in his luck. He lacks strategy but up till now has been far better tactically than anyone else. His book Manual de Resistencia explains the keys to how he has already survived and returned from the never-never, twice. Now he thinks he can do it a third time. Perhaps. But whether it's him or someone else in the prime minister's residence, Catalan independence will not have evaporated and will not have renounced its goal.