Feijóo and a January 15 investiture: forecast, not fact

Feijóo and the calendar of an investiture presented as a forecast

The Spanish parliament will be constituted on December 23. The investiture session, around January 15. And the swearing-in before King Felipe VI, at Zarzuela. That is the calendar that, according to one debate participant, is being used to treat Alberto Núñez Feijóo's investiture as prime minister as a done deal — a narrative circulating these days with more confidence than data, and one worth separating from the noise. Because for now it is a forecast, not a result.

The piece holding that scenario up is the opponent's wear. The PSOE, the argument goes, arrives at the moment without legitimacy even to exercise the opposition, and some go further, claiming it should withdraw its candidacy and cede the space to a broad front. It is the harshest reading of the political moment, and it circulates with the conviction of someone who has already handed out the portfolios.

The PSOE's wear as the central argument

The dominant reasoning has a simple logic: if the government arrives weakened, Feijóo's investiture stops being a possibility and becomes a consequence. There is even talk of a general strike that would be losing its point, because calling one against half of Spain while the situation is still hot would be bad business for its organizers. Politics, in that frame, is measured in opportunity cost.

The problem is that politics does not always trinc the script. Some warn that a lot can happen in a month, and that treating an investiture as sealed by mid-January is confusing a probable scenario with a fait accompli. The distance between what is wished for and what happens is usually measured in weeks.

The factor nobody controls: a month is a long time

The most repeated warning is that of the black swan. The Madrid regional government is pointed to as a possible source of an unforeseen event capable of reshuffling the board, and it is recalled that unexpected turns have already changed election outcomes elsewhere. These are not document-based predictions; they are hypotheses thrown into the air that should be treated as such.

Added to that is distrust of the process itself. Some argue that if the result tightens, the temptation to force the machine grows, and that in that terrain nobody lifts a finger until the count is closed. The shadow of manipulation hovers over the conversation without any evidence to back it.

The past that returns: the photos and Galicia's drug trade

No investiture escapes having its dirty laundry aired. Here the exchange drifts toward the archive: on one side, Feijóo's relationship with Marcial Dorado is recalled, with the precision that at the time of the photo the latter had not yet been identified as a drug trafficker; on the other, the response is accusations of corruption and misused public money attributed to the adversary. These are crossed darts, not convictions.

The result is an exchange that says more about the climate than the facts: two narratives accusing each other of illegitimacy, leaving the investiture hanging by a thread of the other side's wear. The question left in the air is not who is right, but how much of that noise a calendar already written in some offices can withstand.

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The fine print remains. The January 15 date is not a certainty, it is a forecast. And in politics, a single month allows for far more than forecasts admit.