The return of the PSOE to the extreme left and the error that this can cause to its right

The 41st federal congress of the PSOE, which is being held this weekend in Seville, is proving to be a return to the party's roots.

The PSOE document with attacks on fundamental rights at its 41st congress
Sánchez vindicates the founder of the PSOE, who encouraged a coup and supported a dictatorship

A PSOE in tune with the far-left fanatic who founded it

Let us remember that the founder of the PSOE, Pablo Iglesias Posse, was a left-wing extremist who instigated terrorism (encouraging a terrorist attack against right-wing MP Antonio Maura from the rostrum of Congress, and refusing to condemn the attack once it had been carried out) and supported the Soviet dictatorship.

Significantly, Pedro Sánchez vindicated the legacy of Pablo Iglesias a few months ago, perhaps inspired by the speech he gave on July 7, 1910 in the Cortes, which expresses well the attitude that the PSOE has always had towards its political corruption scandals:

"This party has not changed its mind on this matter; it will be within the law as long as the law allows it to acquire what it needs; outside the law, as all parties have been, when it does not allow it to achieve its aspirations."

A replica of North Korea in Seville

What we are seeing this weekend in Seville is the return of the PSOE to the extreme left, if it ever really left it. This is the only way to explain the embarrassing images of the massive applause for Pedro Sánchez, in images that look like a replica of North Korea, and the prominent role in this congress of a nefarious character who left Spain on the brink of bankruptcy: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the de facto ambassador of the Nicolás Maduro regime, a socialist dictatorship whose insults to the opposition are being copied by Sánchez to silence criticism of his abuses of power and the corruption scandals of his government and his party.

'Sanchismo': the mistake of personifying the consequences of socialism

This return of the PSOE to the far left raises potential problems beyond the ranks of this mixture of sect, employment agency and authoritarian movement that is headed by Sánchez. It is enough to look at a custom that has spread in the space to the right of the PSOE, both in the media and in the political arena: describing as "sanchismo" what is in reality the logical evolution of socialism, an ideology that incomprehensibly maintains a good image in Spain despite the fact that its recipes serve to degrade democracy, ruin the economy, generate unemployment and poverty and create the ideal breeding ground for political corruption to flourish.

In the space to the right of the PSOE, this personification of the vices of socialism is not new. It already happened during the governments of Felipe González and Rodríguez Zapatero, when some people insisted on seeing the vices and abuses of socialism as something accidental in that leftist movement, and not as something closely linked to its ideological nature. This helped to protect the PSOE and socialism from the punishment they deserved for their abuses.

The consequences that this error had on the Popular Party ...

The consequences of this error were already evident during the two terms of the Popular Party in government in Spain, both during the time of José María Aznar and during the time of Mariano Rajoy, when the PP abandoned the battle of ideas and settled for offering a socialism focused on good management, which is why this party did not repeal any of the abortion laws approved by the PSOE (neither the one in 1985 nor the one in 2010) nor any of the other ideological laws of the left. The PP continues to maintain this attitude, as Feijóo demonstrated with his attendance this week at the congress of the socialist union UGT.

... and the consequences it may have on the right-wing

But this error does not only exist in the broad ideological space of the centre-left in which the PP has established itself. In part of the right-wing, the idea of ​​a kind of patriotic socialism is also spreading, which openly abhors the recipes of economic freedom in order to embrace the theses of state interventionism, sometimes sharing the criticisms of the left of the free market.

It is worth asking what slice of the socialist pie this part of the right is willing to buy. Is it only the economic recipes, or also a part of the discourse on other aspects such as bioethics, for example, in order to attract leftists who share with the right their rejection of mass immigration, the excesses of environmentalism and radical feminism? The PP began its journey to the left by adopting its ideological theses located beyond the economy, to finally also buy its economic recipes, but this journey can be completed by starting with these recipes. We must remain vigilant so that history does not repeat itself.

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Photo: PSOE.