The socialists are aware that discouragement in their bases can be the worst enemy facing the general elections of 29-N, with the majority of polls pointing to a sufficient majority of the Popular Party and Vox to govern. That is why the president-candidate Pedro Sánchez raised the flag of mobilization this Saturday in Tarragona. "The best recipe against involution is called mobilization. If we vote en masse, we send Feijóo and Abascal home. To vote and win four more years," he assured before about 2,000 people. “Even the Pope has voted!” added Sánchez, referring to the unprecedented fact that Leo XIV made public his decision to participate in the US midterm elections and where there is little reason to think that he supported Donald Trump's Republicans.
Already in the last general elections of 23-J, a part of the progressive electorate - up to two million people - decided to stay at home or voted for parties that did not obtain representation and the PSOE is committed to not letting any vote slip away. Sánchez, who has been accompanied by the European Vice President Teresa Ribera and the President of the Catalan Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has appealed to mobilization with a speech in the key of national sovereignty and remembering that his commitment is to put citizens at the center. “We are not going to allow Spain to be the backyard of the far-right international,” he warned, recalling that the efficiency of public services will not be subordinated to large international economic interests.
“Even the Pope of Rome has voted in the United States!” exclaimed the President of the Government to applause, in an attempt to highlight the uniqueness of the democratic situation. “I don't know what he votes for but he does defend,” he added and then recalled his defense of immigrants and those most in need. The message is framed in Tarragona, the capital of one of the provinces in which the Popular Party has chosen not to run for the Senate, thanks to an agreement with Vox. Hence the idea of subordination was used in two senses. “This 29-N we will say that Spain is governed from Spain, not from Washington, from Israel or from Moscow,” he assured, insisting on the message on Friday night in Valencia, with which the interruption of the pre-campaign due to the train accident was broken.
“I am very sorry for Santiago Abascal and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who wanted to ride the far-right wave, but it is collapsing,” Sánchez continued before also reviewing the electoral results in Brazil or Israel. Both he and Illa, who spoke before him, have placed their hopes in these milestones for a change in the trend of the polls. The first secretary of the PSC has defended that “votes can beat the algorithm” and hence his calls for mobilization. “Nothing is written, we write the future.” The president recalled that, in the last three international electoral events where the extreme right and the left have clashed, the results also seemed to be written in advance, and that a reversal was possible.
Sánchez has tried to use an epic to convey the need to mobilize - "We are going to continue being the lighthouse, we are going to continue inspiring the world" - and has called for a "broad and progressive majority" not only to win the game against Vox and the PP but to be able to continue advancing in social rights. For example, to continue revaluing pensions or protecting the right to abortion in the Constitution, something that could not be achieved in this mandate. “Now that the PP and Vox's chants about revising abortion are back, I am committed that we are going to protect it,” he said. To do so, it would need the support of 3/5 of the Cortes.
The second axis has been crisis management. With the Toledo train accident still recent – 69 dead – and with the anniversary of the Valencian dana also flying over the Tarragona rally, Sánchez has claimed that his Executive “has always stood up to those who have turned their backs.” He did not even need to refer directly to the former Valencian leader Carlos Mazón for his name to resonate among those in attendance.
The battle for Tarragona
The choice of Tarragona for this pre-campaign rally has not been free. It is one of the three provinces where, by virtue of the pact with Vox for the Senate, the Popular Party will not present a candidacy. Both Illa and the candidate for Barcelona, the Minister of Industry Jordi Hereu, have remembered it. “Tarragona is kilometer zero of the PP's surrender to Vox,” said the president of the Generalitat.
“On 29-N, the president of the PP in Catalonia, Alejandro Fernández [who is from Tarragona] will vote for Vox,” said the first secretary of the PSC. "As if the Senate were not important. It is our territorial Chamber and they have turned it into a battering ram against the Government," he said. Hereu, for his part, thanked Sánchez for his commitment to coexistence in Catalonia after the turbulent years of the process. "He is the one who has said on the other side of the Mediterranean that the only way is peace. That is why, Pedro, we will support you," he stressed.
