Pedro Sánchez denies his downfall and jokes about it: there has already been another sinking like this one

This Wednesday, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) is experiencing one of its darkest days due to corruption.

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On the orders of Judge Santiago Pedraz, the investigating judge at the National Court in the case of the Socialist Party's "dirty tricks" against the judiciary, the Civil Guard has searched the national headquarters of the PSOE, the Pablo Iglesias Foundation, and other Socialist Party offices. The scandal caused by this operation has made headlines both within and outside of Spain.

While this was happening, the Speaker of the Congress, the Socialist Francina Armengol, ordered the evacuation of the Congress of Deputies just 15 minutes before the start of the government question time. In the midst of a political firestorm at the PSOE headquarters, the Socialists staged a fire at one of the seats of national sovereignty. An event that leaves one unsure whether to interpret as a distraction, a cruel joke, or a veiled threat about the consequences of upsetting the political establishment in Spain.

From Rome, where he has traveled to try to use Pope Leo XIV as a distraction - the Spanish Prime Minister is already exhausting his last resources to create smokescreens - Sánchez lied and joked cynically about his own downfall to refuse once again to call elections: "There are some colleagues who are asking me to bring forward the elections because they are aware that I will have a larger parliamentary majority in Congress to be able to govern much more calmly, and I appreciate that, but I cannot call elections for partisan interests". A false statement from a pathological liar whose party has been suffering electoral defeats for months in several autonomous communities.

This is not the first time the world has witnessed such an attitude. In 2001, Traudl Junge, one of Adolf Hitler's last personal secretaries, described something similar in her memoirs, titled "Bis zur letzten Stunde" (Until the Last Moment). At 81 years old, and drawing on notes written shortly after the end of World War II, Junge recalled how, during his downfall, Hitler attempted to mobilize divisions that no longer existed, and his entourage joked about the situation, stating that being in Berlin was the most appropriate course of action, since at that point, traveling from the Western Front to the Eastern Front simply required taking a commuter train.

Junge also recalls how Hitler had no qualms about sacrificing children from the Hitler Youth in a futile defense of Berlin against enemy armies that completely overwhelmed the battered German lines. This blindness of Hitler's ultimately led to the almost complete destruction of the city. This is what happens with leaders who refuse to listen to any opinion that doesn't align with their desires and who believe the world would end without them.

Hoy Sánchez está sacrificando a su propio partido para seguir unos meses más en el poder. Tal vez sea ése el único favor que el resto de los españoles le podamos agradecer, pues cuanto más tiempo pase, mayor es el daño que sufrirá el PSOE y, sinceramente, se merece sufrirlo por haber respaldado a ese aprendiz de autócrata en todas sus vilezas desde hace ocho años. Lo que nos queda por ver ahora es, además, cuánto daño está dispuesto Sánchez a hacer a España por aferrarse al poder a cualquier precio. Algún día deberá ser juzgado por ello, y no sólo desde una perspectiva histórica.

Today, Sánchez is sacrificing his own party to remain in power for a few more months. Perhaps that is the only favor the rest of the Spanish people can thank him for, because the longer this goes on, the greater the damage the PSOE will suffer, and frankly, it deserves it for having supported this would-be autocrat in all his vile acts for the past eight years. What remains to be seen is how much damage Sánchez is willing to do to Spain to cling to power at any cost. One day he will have to be judged for it, and not only from a historical perspective.

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Photo: La Moncloa.