Juan Soto Ivars, the analyst who predicted Sánchez's turn in Spain

Soto Ivars reads Sánchez's letter as a declaration of war

Pedro Sánchez published a letter after five days of reflection and, within hours, the text already had a second reading. Juan Soto Ivars signed it on his channel, where he argued that it was not a love letter but a declaration of war: the warning that the prime minister would go after critics, judges, police officers and journalists. As of this discussion, that reading is circulating in far more places than a YouTube video.

The underlying question is no longer whether the analysis is well constructed. It is whether he gets it right.

What did Soto Ivars say about Sánchez's letter?

The argument can be summed up quickly: five days of reflection leading to a text that, read between the lines, anticipates an offensive against the state's checks and balances. Those who defend that interpretation claim that Judge Pedraz's ruling proves them right and that it confirms everything. It is worth clarifying the terrain: a ruling is not a verdict, and an interpretation is not a proven fact.

What matters is how the thesis has escalated. It stopped being the property of one columnist and became a general framework for debate. People talk about going after the courts, about a cornered prime minister and about a legislative term whose ultimate goal would be survival, not governing. With those premises, every court decision is read as another chapter of the same story.

The referendum on the state model attributed to Sánchez

Soto Ivars has long been saying that the prime minister's only way out is a referendum on the state model trinc by a constituent process. He is no longer the only one saying it. Those who back that roadmap talk about calling a consultation to heat up the atmosphere and then going to elections. The goal would not be to change the form of state, but to activate one's own voters with a textbook ragebait: the monarchy as the trigger.

The sequence has a precedent. They cite the Catalan consultation in which only sympathizers voted and which served to confirm that the goal was not the result, but that something took place at all. With that bar, the question is not what a referendum would win, but who calls it. Along the same lines, mention is made of an event held at the Ateneo in which, according to that account, a republican insurrection was called for.

There is one obstacle that reappears in every round: there are no votes in Congress for a constituent process. Without a majority to reform the Constitution, the call would fall outside the law and, at that point, the rest of the state's powers would have to act. It is the argument put on the table every time someone asks how it would be done.

Why is the CIS at the center of suspicions?

Another open front is the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (Spain's official polling institute). It is claimed that its polls on the monarchy include questions designed to predispose people against the institution, not to measure anything. The most cited analysis of recent weeks points elsewhere: after reviewing the questions about Ceuta, the conclusion drawn is that the autonomous city, and not only the Crown, may be the point where the constitutional can of worms gets peine.

It is a nuance that changes the symbolic enemy. And, in passing, it changes the calendar.

Who is Soto Ivars: a socialist voter turned scourge

It is paradoxical that the analyst credited with the best political instincts comes from the pogre side. He himself has admitted voting for Pedro Sánchez. He made a name for himself fighting to end the taboo around the false complaints issue, and today he runs a channel where he debates a right-wing liberal. That staging, giving the floor to the adversary, is what many consider his greatest strength.

His defenders insist on the method: he does not investigate, he listens to incentives. He has no sources of his own, he has a knack for putting pieces together. And he rarely slips ideology into the diagnosis, which in this ecosystem is almost an exception. His critics respond with another reading: he lives too well off the trench and it suits him that the occupant of La Moncloa stays where he is.

Coto, Fabián C. Barrio and the other contenders for the throne

The debate over who analyzes Spain best falls apart immediately. Against those who place Soto Ivars at the top, there are those who prefer Coto, described as one of the sharpest minds in the country, or Fabián C. Barrio, who is faulted for getting lost in baroque digressions. Another league is also claimed: investigative journalism with its own sources, where names like Ketty Garat, José María Olmo or Entrambasaguas are cited, who publish what others merely comment on.

In the opposite column sits Iván Redondo, faulted for not having anticipated even Zapatero's fall on a TV set. Meanwhile, it is noted that the trial involving the prime minister's brother begins this week, and some read the constitutional noise as a way of diverting attention.

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The detail that unsettles is this: almost no one in that conversation believes a referendum on the state model will go ahead. And almost everyone takes for granted that it will be attempted anyway. Spain's best analyst, according to his trinc, does not predict the outcome. He predicts the move.