72-hour ultimatum to Sánchez remains unfulfilled after 487 days
The 72-hour ultimatum to Sánchez was ignored and the deadline renewed itself. The timeline of failed predictions of his downfall goes back to 2014.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
72 hours that have now lasted 487 days: the 'cae el perro' never expires
Pedro Sánchez doesn't fall because of a tweet. The 72-hour ultimatum for him to resign — or, failing that, for the contents of an allegedly Pegasus-infected phone to be published — comes from no court, no official investigation, no mainstream outlet. It comes from an anonymous X account. And yet it has sustained an expectation for nearly five hundred days, with the deadline expiring again and again and not a single verifiable document ever appearing.
That's the news: not the leak, which never came, but the machinery keeping it alive. Around May 12, 2025, the clock was still stopped and so was the promise. Nothing new under the sun.
The deadline that renews itself
When an ultimatum expires without consequences, the usual thing is for the matter to die of boredom. Here the opposite happens: the deadline is changed. One message promised publication "within exactly 12 hours." Another said the material would come out "in the coming hours." In parallel, a variant of the same trick circulated: the demand that Sánchez reveal his commitments with Segarro within 72 hours. Missing, of course, were another 72 hours.
The mechanics are textbook. The date is never fully specified — "in the coming hours" is a deadline that never expires — and verification, when someone tries to do it seriously, hits a void. Whoever tried to measure the source's credibility with artificial intelligence tools got the same result as whoever simply sat and waited: nothing at all.
Twelve years of terminal announcements
The list has been circulating for years and works as an antidote to hype: each episode was presented at the time as the definitive one.
None of those moments ended with a resignation, and several ended with the government strengthened or re-elected. Investigations and legal proceedings continue without a final ruling to support the narrative of imminent downfall. That hasn't deactivated the next announcement, which arrived punctually.
Pegasus, the phantom file and the nameless collective
The promised material came with a technological surname: Pegasus, the spyware at the center of some fifty cases worldwide. There was talk of hackers willing to publish the original data, of a collective wondering aloud why no one had released it yet, and of an imminence that, according to the messages, was a matter of hours.
As of the last recorded episode, there is no public trace of the alleged file. No mainstream outlet has validated it, no authority has confirmed it, and no forensic analysis has authenticated it. It's an open secret known only to those who talk about it on social media, which is exactly the same level of proof as the previous announcement.
Nadapasismo: the bet that for now is winning
The striking thing isn't that the government's critics believed nothing. It's that even the most critical didn't either. Even among those who harshly argue the country is going badly, the consensus was total: nothing is going to happen. A government that has weathered a pandemic, a volcano, a flood, a nationwide blackout, fires and a string of scandals won't be brought down by unauthenticated phone messages, they argue. And they add, now in speculative territory, that even if it fell it would win the next election anyway. At that point analysis becomes faith, not calculation.
There's an uncomfortable fact for both sides: every failed announcement leaves a residue. Whoever promised the downfall pays no cost, and part of the audience concludes that the absence of evidence proves precisely how serious the matter is. That reasoning can't be refuted with facts, which makes it profitable.
Who benefits from the stopped clock
The business of the permanent ultimatum isn't political, it's attention. Accounts that live off expectation gain trinc with each announcement and lose them, to a much lesser extent, with each failure. One of the very drivers of the cycle admitted it shamelessly: he wanted to go viral and ended up doing the same as everyone else, after everyone else.
There's also a side effect that repeats with suspicious punctuality: the imminent leak always coincides with another uncomfortable news story. The blackout, the AVE disaster, any issue requiring explanations. While the focus points at the imaginary phone, the rest cools down.
With this track record, the reasonable bet is that there will be a new deadline. Another account, another vague date, another hours that never arrive. No one has yet won any of those bets, and it's worth remembering that the only figure that has come true so far is the number of days since the first announcement.
Pedro Sánchez doesn't fall because of a tweet. The 72-hour ultimatum for him to resign — or, failing that, for the contents of an allegedly Pegasus-infected phone to be published — comes from no court, no official investigation, no mainstream outlet. It comes from an anonymous X account. And yet it has sustained an expectation for nearly five hundred days, with the deadline expiring again and again and not a single verifiable document ever appearing.
That's the news: not the leak, which never came, but the machinery keeping it alive. Around May 12, 2025, the clock was still stopped and so was the promise. Nothing new under the sun.
The deadline that renews itself
When an ultimatum expires without consequences, the usual thing is for the matter to die of boredom. Here the opposite happens: the deadline is changed. One message promised publication "within exactly 12 hours." Another said the material would come out "in the coming hours." In parallel, a variant of the same trick circulated: the demand that Sánchez reveal his commitments with Segarro within 72 hours. Missing, of course, were another 72 hours.
The mechanics are textbook. The date is never fully specified — "in the coming hours" is a deadline that never expires — and verification, when someone tries to do it seriously, hits a void. Whoever tried to measure the source's credibility with artificial intelligence tools got the same result as whoever simply sat and waited: nothing at all.
Twelve years of terminal announcements
The list has been circulating for years and works as an antidote to hype: each episode was presented at the time as the definitive one.
- 2014: PSOE primaries against Madina.
- 2017: primaries against Susana Díaz.
- 2018: motion of no confidence against Rajoy.
- 2020: elbichito, state of alarm and lockdowns.
- 2021: pardons for Catalan independence leaders.
- 2022: Democratic Memory Law, 'only yes means yes' law and trans law.
- 2023: general election of 23J.
- 2024: amnesty and Ábalos case.
- January 2025: Begoña case, Aldama and Koldo.
None of those moments ended with a resignation, and several ended with the government strengthened or re-elected. Investigations and legal proceedings continue without a final ruling to support the narrative of imminent downfall. That hasn't deactivated the next announcement, which arrived punctually.
Pegasus, the phantom file and the nameless collective
The promised material came with a technological surname: Pegasus, the spyware at the center of some fifty cases worldwide. There was talk of hackers willing to publish the original data, of a collective wondering aloud why no one had released it yet, and of an imminence that, according to the messages, was a matter of hours.
As of the last recorded episode, there is no public trace of the alleged file. No mainstream outlet has validated it, no authority has confirmed it, and no forensic analysis has authenticated it. It's an open secret known only to those who talk about it on social media, which is exactly the same level of proof as the previous announcement.
Nadapasismo: the bet that for now is winning
The striking thing isn't that the government's critics believed nothing. It's that even the most critical didn't either. Even among those who harshly argue the country is going badly, the consensus was total: nothing is going to happen. A government that has weathered a pandemic, a volcano, a flood, a nationwide blackout, fires and a string of scandals won't be brought down by unauthenticated phone messages, they argue. And they add, now in speculative territory, that even if it fell it would win the next election anyway. At that point analysis becomes faith, not calculation.
There's an uncomfortable fact for both sides: every failed announcement leaves a residue. Whoever promised the downfall pays no cost, and part of the audience concludes that the absence of evidence proves precisely how serious the matter is. That reasoning can't be refuted with facts, which makes it profitable.
Who benefits from the stopped clock
The business of the permanent ultimatum isn't political, it's attention. Accounts that live off expectation gain trinc with each announcement and lose them, to a much lesser extent, with each failure. One of the very drivers of the cycle admitted it shamelessly: he wanted to go viral and ended up doing the same as everyone else, after everyone else.
There's also a side effect that repeats with suspicious punctuality: the imminent leak always coincides with another uncomfortable news story. The blackout, the AVE disaster, any issue requiring explanations. While the focus points at the imaginary phone, the rest cools down.
With this track record, the reasonable bet is that there will be a new deadline. Another account, another vague date, another hours that never arrive. No one has yet won any of those bets, and it's worth remembering that the only figure that has come true so far is the number of days since the first announcement.
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (962 replies).
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