Maricarmen and the narrative: timeline of a suspicion

Maricarmen and the narrative: timeline of a suspicion

An 87-year-old woman, with no children, siblings, or inheritance to leave, becomes the epicenter of an early election. That is the paradox running through the 72 messages of this case: Maricarmen's death, presented as a consequence of an eviction, coincides in time with two royal decrees voted in Congress —something that is never done—, a hospitalization, encampments, a general strike after 14 years, and hours of TV news coverage from minute one. The question hanging in the air is not whether the lady died, but whether the narrative surrounding her holds up.

What peine and why the calendar doesn't add up

The starting point is concrete: an 87-year-old woman is hospitalized just when an alleged eviction was about to take place. From there, the sequence accelerates. Two royal decrees are voted in Congress, encampments are called, unions announce a general strike after 14 years, and the Prime Minister appears on the front page from the first minute. All of this leads to an early election.

Some argue that the coincidence is too perfect to be casual. The recurring argument is that the government knew the election date in advance and, probably, the profile of the person to be used. The chosen date, November 29, adds up to 2+9=11 in month 11 and is day 333 of the year. For some analysts, these numerical coincidences prove nothing, but they fuel the sense of choreography.

The most repeated comparison is with other episodes: deaths in nursing homes during the pandemic, the victims of the Valencia DANA, the blackouts. In all those cases, it is argued, the prime minister did not react with the same estimulante ilegal. Here, however, the media spotlight turned on from minute one.

The union, rentism and the unnamed culprits

The tenants' union denounced that rentism "has finished killing Maricarmen." That phrase is the axis of another line of criticism: there is talk of the rentism of those who own property and rent it out, but there is no talk of land, banking, taxes, city councils, or the State. The accusation, according to this current, is directed at the small property owner while protecting the big players.

In parallel, the figure of Ada Colau appears. Más Madrid proposed that the former mayor of Barcelona head the list for Barcelona of the so-called Broad Front, a proposal that the party justified by "territoriality, generosity, and confederal functioning." For some, the choice of a professional actress —or an activist turned candidate— is exactly what the script needed.

The result, they argue, is a media circus that distracts from what is important. While televisions and radios are fully focused on the issue, behind the scenes the underlying topics are brewing: banking, taxes, land, city councils.

The psyop thesis and its holes

The most repeated hypothesis is that there is an "evil think tank" within the PSOE that uses the prime minister as a puppet and designs operations of this type. This shadow group would have contacts in activism, unions, and the media. The Maricarmen plan had been cooking for some time and a few days ago the starting gun was fired.

There are more extreme variants. One holds that Maricarmen is alive and that a deceased elderly woman was used to replace her. Another suggests that the PSOE is trying to kill two birds with one stone: wear down the right and, at the same time, the far left, which would end up looking like a useful idiot by instrumentalizing the corpse. In that reading, Sánchez would say nothing and let others carry the weight of the mortuary propaganda.

Against this, the obvious objection: if everything is a setup, why has no one presented evidence? The answer given is that the evidence is the accumulation of coincidences itself. There is no document, there is a pattern.

What lies ahead: 50 days and a war on the horizon

The closure of the case is not a closure. The conversation drifts toward what is coming: 50 days of campaign, a forced war with Russia, the Strait of Hormuz, Ceuta. The dominant feeling is that this is only the beginning of a larger operation.

On the other side of the Pyrenees, meanwhile, students at the University of Nantes chant "Revolution! Revolution!". The connection is not argued, it is suggested. And in that shifting terrain, the question left floating is the same one that peine the case: does anyone really believe the Maricarmen setup?