Sánchez, in dictator mode: delegitimizes Congress now that the left is in the minority

If anyone still harbored doubts about the authoritarian nature of Spanish socialism, they need only look at what has happened in the last few hours.

November 29: the last chance to prevent Spain from ceasing to be a democracy
Governing without legislative power: Pedro Sánchez is announcing a dictatorship

Yesterday, Sánchez pitted a supposed "social majority" against Parliament

This Monday, in the institutional statement announcing snap elections for November 29, Spain's incumbent Prime Minister made the following assertion: "I know there is dissatisfaction among part of that social majority today. I know they are outraged to see their interests trampled upon in Parliament for the benefit of a few."

This statement was far from accidental: last Friday, following the defeat of the government's housing decrees, it became evident that the Left had lost the parliamentary majority that had enabled Sánchez's re-election in 2023—which occurred after his party, the PSOE, had lost that year's general election (the People's Party won, but without a sufficient majority to govern). Faced with this situation, Sánchez contrasts a supposed "social majority" (which he claims to represent) with the parliamentary majority.

This is an unprecedented situation in a democracy, one that reveals the extent to which Sánchez has embarked on an increasingly dangerous course: the leader of a party that lost the last election is delegitimizing a Parliament in which he has lost the support of the majority of MPs. What are we supposed to call this?

Today, Sánchez once again attempted to delegitimize the seat of national sovereignty

In case his attempt to delegitimize Congress wasn't already clear, Sánchez did it again today during his remarks following the Council of Ministers meeting. There, he once again approved the decrees that Congress had rejected on Friday, aiming to have them passed by the Permanent Deputation—where he holds the narrow majority needed to push through at least one of them—in a move described by legal experts as a "constitutional fraud." At the end of his remarks, providing a clear headline for the media, Sánchez stated: "Parliament may have turned its back—I repeat—on the street, but this progressive coalition government demonstrates, through these measures, that it will never do so."

It is the same thing he did yesterday: delegitimizing Congress and supplanting the parliamentary majority with a fictitious one—in this case, by invoking "the street," as if he represented the popular will above national sovereignty. In this regard, the Spanish Constitution is very clear. Article 1 states: "National sovereignty resides in the Spanish people, from whom the powers of the State emanate." Article 66 specifies which bodies represent the Spanish people: "The Cortes Generales represent the Spanish people and consist of the Congress of Deputies and the Senate."

As he announced in 2021, Sánchez is following in the footsteps of Largo Caballero

With his statements this Monday and Tuesday, Sánchez has shifted into dictator mode, justifying his abuses of power with a campaign to delegitimize Parliament simply because he currently lacks a majority in either of its two chambers—neither the Congress nor the Senate. His statements this week amount to more than just an attempt to justify his abuses of power and the constitutional breaches he has committed today and intends to commit in the coming weeks. Furthermore, Sánchez is laying the groundwork for a campaign to delegitimize Parliament should the Left be defeated in these elections—elections in which virtually all polls predict a landslide victory for the center-right.

With this display of an anti-democratic mindset, Sánchez is effectively hurling a political Molotov cocktail at the parliamentary majority that emerges from the polls. Of course, this is not an attitude Sánchez has only just revealed, nor one we were not warned about beforehand. In 2021, Sánchez proposed acting like Francisco Largo Caballero, a Socialist leader who threatened Spain with a "civil war" if the Right won the 1933 general election—a threat he ultimately carried out in October 1934 by spearheading a coup d'état when the Right took office after winning that election. At that time, Spaniards were subjected to immense coercion, forced to vote under that terrible threat from the PSOE—a party that, 93 years later, still displays the same anti-democratic mindset.

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Photo: La Moncloa.