The labyrinth the PP has gotten itself into

Feijóo must negotiate with Abascal in the Valencian Community, but confront him in Extremadura.

This should have been an easy week for Sánchez 's main opposition party. But the People's Party has managed to turn it disconcertingly into a labyrinth that could trap them for months to come, because to get out they need Vox.

The belated resignation of Carlos Mazón as president of the Valencian Generalitat, which should have occurred long ago, has overshadowed not only the start of the trial of the Attorney General , another institutional red line crossed by the Sánchez administration without any shame or self-criticism, but also the Supreme Court's decision to finally open a trial against José Luis Ábalos , Sánchez's right-hand man in the PSOE and the government, for profiting from the mass purchase of masks at the height of the pandemic. Furthermore, the report released by the Civil Guard identifies the current Minister of Territorial Policy and former president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres , as an essential collaborator in the scheme and confirms that he lied for months every time he publicly claimed not to know the middleman Víctor de Aldama .

All of this, added to the lack of parliamentary support after the break with Junts and the scandalous neglect of the constitutional obligation to present the State Budget, which Sánchez and María Jesús Montero have been failing to do for a whopping 765 days, is more than enough motivation to demand that the Prime Minister call elections immediately, but the PP is trapped, once again, in its own contradictions .

Mazón's resignation without calling Valencians to the polls—which is always the most democratic solution to any crisis—undermines the Popular Party's legitimacy in demanding that Sánchez do the same. And, as he has demonstrated countless times, the Socialist leader is a master at exploiting his rivals' weaknesses for his own benefit.

No one doubts that Sánchez will attack Feijóo as soon as he has the chance for once again throwing himself into the arms of Vox to avoid losing the Valencian Generalitat, conveniently ignoring, as always, that he remains in Moncloa because he made a pact with separatists and ETA sympathizers despite having proclaimed time and again that he wouldn't. As Enrique García Máiquez reminds us, interpreting Shakespeare , you can't beat the devil at his game, but you can shame him with the truth.

This is not the case for the Popular Party, which, in addition to dealing with Sánchez, will have to pursue a two-pronged strategy with Vox in the coming months: on the one hand, negotiating with Abascal 's party about who will be the next Valencian president, and, on the other, confronting them in the campaign for the early elections on December 21 in Extremadura, where the main argument of María Guardiola 's PP is that it has not been able to pass the 2026 Budget because of... Vox!

And what interest could this party, which 16 months ago abandoned the coalition governments with the PP in Aragon, Castile and León, Valencian Community, Extremadura and Murcia to distance itself ideologically from them, have in supporting them in power, missing the opportunity to weaken them by prolonging the political crisis in Valencia?

Feijóo prides himself on not interfering in the decisions of the party's regional leadership, something consistent with his own personal history, since he himself demanded a free hand when he was president of the Galician regional government, and even makes sense in an organization as fragmented as the People's Party (PP). But this is difficult for some of his voters and the average Spaniard to understand, as they have little or no interest in the internal workings of political parties.