Sánchez returns on TVE without resigning, promises 'cleaning'

Sánchez returns on TVE without resigning, promises 'cleaning'

Five days of silence, an interview on TVE, and a conclusion that those who bet on his continuity had already won. Pedro Sánchez does not resign. He appeared smiling, recounted his version of the drama with every detail, and dropped a warning that much of the analysis read as a declaration of war: he does not intend to take prisoners. The historic or hysterical meeting, depending on who looks at it, served to fix a single idea, that the president has risen again.

What did Sánchez say in the TVE interview?

He confirmed that he remains at the head of the Executive and placed social support as the central reason for his decision. "I believe in the separation of powers," he assured, adding that social media and websites "must be transversal," with people "from the left, the center, the right." The phrase that summarizes his narrative of these days is another: the mobilization of the people has made him change his mind.

The tone was one of gratitude to his supporters and a warning to the rest. He established doctrine against rumors — rumors are inadmissible — and minutes later, according to his critics' reading, made an unsubstantiated claim about the PP leader. The contradiction spread faster than any data. His thesis on the country's climate also emerged: there are many people who do not accept "this type of rumors and way of doing politics."

The tug-of-war over the figures: 12,000 on Saturday, 5,000 on Sunday

The social support he cited as a reason to stay is measured with elastic numbers. The figures that circulated speak of 12,000 attendees on Saturday and 5,000 on Sunday in the vicinity of Ferraz, plus a couple of hundred familiar faces. In a country of 48 million inhabitants, those 5,000 people are arithmetically marginal, no matter how much they present themselves as a tide.

This is where the struggle begins. Some read in the demonstrations proof that there is a majority willing to mobilize; others, the confirmation that the president needs a very specific minority to justify his continuity. No one closes the complete calculation of attendance and its weight on the census.

Feijóo, press freedom, and the request to the director of El Debate

Alberto Núñez Feijóo set the bar where it suited him: "What cannot be is confusing press freedom with defamation freedom." The PSOE's response was not long in coming. The party demanded "an immediate rectification" from the director of the El Debate website, Bieito Rubido, and announced that it would abstain from evaluating his statements until hearing his explanations.

The episode leaves an uncomfortable picture: a Government that proclaims its faith in the separation of powers and, at the same time, opens the door to reviewing what is information and what is defamation. Part of the analysis goes further and maintains that, after the episode, an offensive against newspapers, websites, and channels that inconvenience the Executive is coming. It is a prediction, not a consummated fact.

The royal decree for influencers and content control

In less than 24 hours came the next move. The ministry led by Escrivá announced a royal decree that will force content creators to comply with a code of conduct, label their content by age, and correctly identify advertising. The official argument: "There will be more control of hidden advertising."

The reading of the more critical sector is different: another step toward regulating speech on social media, presented as viewer protection. The full text of the law and its real scope remain to be specified, and that is where much of the interest of the matter lies.

The international reading: a telenovela

The German magazine Der Spiegel, the most read in the country, did not mince words: "The shameful spectacle of Pedro Sánchez. He has turned Spanish politics into a telenovela. He behaves like a capricious and rabid teenager." The journalistic translation of the entire episode, in four lines.

The foreign echo matters because it touches the framework where more emphasis has been placed: the idea that this is a matter for a country that degrades itself. The parallel with The Handmaid's Tale that was stirred a few years ago before a hypothetical Vox government has been turned upside down, as the most critical point out with irony.

The judicial investigation into the president's vvife

The trigger remains open. The judicial investigation affecting Begoña Gómez, the president's vvife, continues without a known firm resolution as of the date of this discussion. The allegations that circulate range from the use of European funds to the granting of a chair; they are formulated as suspicion and not as proven fact.

On this terrain, the president built his defense: that of a man besieged by a mud machine. His critics reply that much of the noise is generated by his own environment. The two versions coexist without an arbitrator.

The question that no one closes remains: whether the narrative holds until the electoral calendar or breaks before. The interview does not answer it. It only postpones it.