Pedro Sánchez is a specialist in surprises and this new government will have them too, according to various sources from the executive and the PSOE, but no one expects a total revolution like in July 2021, when the president removed three parts at once. Key to his hard core: Iván Redondo, all-powerful chief of staff; Carmen Calvo, First Vice President and as such the great coordinator of the Council of Ministers, and José Luis Ábalos, Organizing Secretary of the PSOE and Minister of Development.
Some time later, Adriana Lastra, deputy general secretary of the party and spokesperson in Congress, also left this most trusted group. So, of the original core, only Félix Bolaños remained, who was promoted to presidential minister as part of this reorganization, María Jesús Montero, now number two of the PSOE, and Santos Cerdán, who remains a key man for Sánchez in Ferraz Street, headquarters of the game.
This time, and despite the fact that the opacity is absolute and the few who know are sworn to silence – the president began calling ministers on Saturday but demanded that they all say nothing until Monday – none of them are The heads of state and government interviewed are committed to such a radical change. Yes, there will be, they say, important positions, but not in the hard core of La Moncloa and the PSOE, which is almost the same and, since this crucial July 2021, consists of Bolaños, the great negotiator and coordinator of the entire executive. ; Montero, Cerdán, Pilar Alegría and Isabel Rodríguez in the PSOE and, above all, in La Moncloa, the chief of staff, the almighty Óscar López; his right-hand man, Antonio Hernando; economic guru Manuel de la Rocha; the Secretary of State for Communications, Francesc Vallés, and other less well-known but also very relevant people in the Cabinet, such as Diego Rubio or Paco Salazar. Nobody expects a revolution there. And in a power structure as presidential as Sánchez’s, this is a key decision because, unlike previous governments, both the PSOE and the PP, in times of crisis the ministries do not have as much power as La Moncloa in strategic decisions and even in programming economic measures.
Sánchez is about to lose a key figure like Nadia Calviño, who is not in this environment but has great weight in economic policy, because her candidacy for the presidency of the European Investment Bank will be voted on December 8th. Calviño will continue until then, but all powers are already considering his replacement, which does not appear to be announced at the moment.
The most important decision to see how this power is shaped in La Moncloa is whether Bolaños will become justice minister, a central issue of this legislative period, with the amnesty law and the rejection of many judges being the main actors. By the time of the 2021 revamp, he was already on the verge of going to court. But his crucial role in La Moncloa has many thinking that Sánchez will finally leave him in his position and look for another strong profile for the department.
Sánchez has also spoken several times with Yolanda Díaz, leader of Sumar, to finalize the completion of the ministries corresponding to this party, in principle the five that Unidas Podemos had, although with changes in the portfolio and, above all, in the people it has elected Vice President. .
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Accustomed to foreseeing all possible scenarios after four years marked by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, in La Moncloa they did not expect the fight between Sumar and Podemos, in which Nacho Álvarez officially with the leadership of the Ione party Belarra broke, to which he belonged, and finally resigned from his position as minister. But Irene Montero will not be a minister and the PSOE will restore equality.
The fight between Sumar and Podemos came on the same day that Sánchez promised the position before the king in La Zarzuela for the third time since he won the no-confidence motion against Mariano Rajoy in June 2018. “There are concerns. Anything that involves division is bad for all of us, and this also applies to the European elections, the elections in the Basque Country and in Galicia next year. It would be good if this space that has been created is preserved and continues to exist because it has shown that it has the ability to attract votes. A party further to the left would lead to an imbalance, as was the case with the disaster on the right in the April 2019 general election,” Ferraz sources emphasize.
Sánchez has three major cabinet reshuffles ahead of him. In all cases, he first called ministers and high-ranking officials who did not want to continue to La Moncloa, which he started doing on Saturday, according to several sources. Instead, members of the new Council of Ministers receive their call just an hour before it is official. And during this time, they cannot give in to the temptation to tell those closest to them. If there’s something Sánchez can’t stand, it’s leaks. And the cost can be that the appointment is canceled.
Sánchez’s decision to leave the new government on Monday prevented him from dealing with Saturday’s protests against the amnesty supported by PP and Vox. These ended with several hundred people blocking traffic in the Spanish capital at the La Moncloa complex on the A-6, one of the city’s main arteries. In addition, the president’s decision to leave the executive branch on Monday will coincide with 20-N, the 48th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s death, although no one excludes the possibility that some names will be revealed before then. The symbolism will be obvious: faced with the extreme right justifying the dictator, on this day the president will introduce the second left-wing coalition government in Spain since the Second Republic. Everything is ready.
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