Alfonso Guerra warns of PSOE 'caesarism' and Spain's risk

Guerra flags PSOE 'caesarism' and danger to Spain

A Spanish Air Force Mystère jet flew from Madrid to avoid a multi-kilometer queue at the Portuguese border in Vila Real de Santo Antonio. The passenger was Alfonso Guerra, then Vice President of the Government; drivers waiting for the ferry to Ayamonte heckled him upon seeing him pass, according to press reports. Decades later, the same man argues that the PSOE is led with an "obvious tendency towards caesarism" by Pedro Sánchez and that the country is in danger, in statements collected by The Objective.

What has Alfonso Guerra said about the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez?

The diagnosis has a name and a mechanism. Guerra describes a party where the secretary general chooses the leadership and those on congress lists, a concentration that empties internal life. When the leadership was renewed, Sánchez proclaimed "this is the new PSOE." The response was dry: "No, it is another PSOE".

The argument rests on cases. He considers it incomprehensible that Nicolás Redondo Terreros was expelled from the PSOE for disagreeing with Sánchez and states that in democracy, opinion crimes do not exist. Of former government presidents, he keeps two, Adolfo Suárez and Felipe González; of the rest, "better not go into details." The right to express opinions and demonstrate, he reminds us, are constitutional and no one can deny them.

The 6% that rules over the 94%

Here the reasoning becomes arithmetic. The 6% of Congress — separatists and Basque nationalists, in his formula — currently rules more than the 94%, and while anyone can name that system whatever they want, he adds, "the name will never be pretty." On amnesty, there is no beating around the bush: it is not in the Constitution because it was not wanted there. "How are we going to grant amnesty to someone who says they will do it again!" he asks.

He projects the scenario he claims not to contemplate: if Catalan nationalism managed to separate Catalonia, how long would it take for the same thing to happen in the Basque Country, Balearic Islands, Valencia or Canary Islands, whose president has alluded to the Free Associated State of the Ibarretxe Plan. This is the part of the speech that critics consider more political than descriptive, and also the one with most traction in responses.

Earpieces, theater, and co-official languages

The most domestic stretch concerns co-official languages in Parliament. Regarding headsets used to trinc interventions, he ironizes: everyone understands each other perfectly and, once out in the hallway, they will continue speaking Spanish. "It is all theater", he concludes. The criticism extends to identity politics: great passions and principles have been replaced by gender, territorial or cultural identity, which fragments society; parties have equality secretariats that only address equality between men and women, and through this gap enter "weeds".

Why is he answered with his own history?

Much of the response does not discuss the data: it discusses the messenger. That the person issuing the warning is precisely the one who controlled the party with an iron fist, and who left behind the saying "he who moves doesn't get in the photo," is used as an argument to deactivate the whole message. Some argue that everything started with that generation: industrial dismantling, territorial concessions, and corruption. They throw in his face, above all, the epilogue that pursues that Government — that no one would know Spain, not even its mother — and that today is presented as a bill.

The most repeated objection is another: that the author of the warning himself admits he will vote for the PSOE again. He complains that what he applied is now applied to him, several messages summarize; freedom to say "me," prohibition for others. Alongside this circulate screenshots and rumors about security reinforcements, alleged crimes, and even military movements that lack any proof and remain what they are, unverified rumors.

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The uncomfortable question: what is the alternative?

When criticism generalizes, the inverse question appears: if the PSOE is this, what remains? The alternatives being discussed generate more rejection than the denunciation itself, and much of the conversation gets stuck there. Another current takes the scenario to the extreme, speaking of territorial division, comparisons with the former Yugoslavia, and the breakup of the country into weaker units, with Europe's cheapest labor force as the horizon. Against this, the doubt reappears: why is protest concentrated on Catalan amnesty and not the Basque quota (Cupo Vasco). The complete data of that discussion, with percentages and broken down territorial projections, allow for a longer analysis than fits here.

And the disorienting fact remains. Circulating, attributed to Felipe González, is a two-line dialogue: the former president acknowledges that the PSOE is doing many things very badly and, asked about his vote, replies that he voted for the PSOE. One thing is the diagnosis, another is the ballot.