San Torpete, in Italian, Torpes of Pisa, in English, was a martyr who, according to Christian tradition, in the 1st century CE chose Jesus rather than maintaining his place in Nero's guard, which until then he had led. According to the calendar of saints, his feast is celebrated this Monday. Given the silence to which Pedro Sánchez has subjected us, for five days, locked up in the Moncloa palace, debating whether or not he should continue as Prime Minister, we have, at the time of writing, nothing more specific about his decision than the date of Saint Torpes. Perhaps he is coming to the conclusion that Spanish justice is not that which since the Renaissance has been represented as a blindfolded woman, with a sword in one hand and scales in the other, as an image of balance and equity.
The saint that falls on this day is a curious coincidence, for someone who never makes a single stitch without a thread, and has caused panic in a PSOE whose leaders are all paying with faces of terror. The Socialist party's federal committee meeting on Saturday at Calle Ferraz said it all, with some of its members distraught and in a clear state of panic. You only needed to look, for example, at the presidency and justice minister, Félix Bolaños, chief plumber at the palace, who either knows nothing, hence the concern, or doesn't like what he imagines. Hence the information blackout, to which this time there have been no exceptions.
The moment is unusual - never has a Spanish prime minister initiated a situation of interrupting his own mandate to reflect on his continuity - and thus, everything that has come from that is, to say the least, strange. I already know that the Socialists do not like it if one is critical of Sánchez's move, and they immediately deploy labels for those who do not offer empathy with his decision. But listening to the Catalan Republican Left MP Ruben Wagensberg, who had to go into exile on Switzerland due to a bizarre persecution for terrorism from the National Audience judge Manuel García-Castellón, explaining this Sunday that no Catalan Socialist had sent him any message of support, it makes it difficult to empathize with Sánchez in political terms.
Never has a Spanish prime minister initiated a situation of interrupting his own mandate to reflect on his continuity
I speak of Wagensberg because he is part of the latest wave of exiles, with a Socialist government in the Moncloa palace, but I could refer to any of the other seven investigated in the Democratic Tsunami case, who have also had to go abroad and who join those who have been there since 2017, starting with president Carles Puigdemont. That is a stubborn reality: they only found a legal solution because Pedro Sánchez had no other option and was forced into accepting the amnesty law. Afterwards, the discourses were constructed and normalization was discussed. But we all know that the normalization happened through the lack of votes in Congress, not as the result of political reflection.
As I write this article - 10pm on Sunday - no one knows at what time Sánchez will inform us of his decision. That is not very normal. It must have to do with a very Spanish gene, because I assure you that in any other of the major European Union powers, such an attitude would be unthinkable. Luckily it's not long to wait.