Sánchez and Feijóo face to face: a personal matter

When was the last time Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo had a minimally cordial public conversation? In reality, it's possible it never happened, and given the downward spiral the current legislature is hurtling down, it probably won't happen.

There is, in what was heard and seen yesterday morning in the Congressional gallery—the mood was no different in the afternoon session—something that goes beyond the realm of political confrontation to delve into the personal between the two.

"There's no amount of makeup that can hide the fact that you're a ruined politician putting on a show. You're in this situation because you've turned out to be a fraud." Alberto Núñez Feijóo

You have the nerve to compare yourself to me. But who are you living with? But what brothels have you lived in? You participated profitably in the abominable business of prostitution, and now you want to outlaw your life. It's up to you, Your Honor. Alberto Núñez Feijóo

"All these years, you have sustained a big lie: you didn't come to clean up anything, but to dirty everything: your party, politics, and the nation of which you are no longer a worthy representative." Alberto Núñez Feijóo

The Popular Party leader's allusions to the Prime Minister's family are perhaps the crudest example of this way of conducting public conversation. But the Prime Minister was right behind him with his—repeated ad nauseam for months—allusion to the dangerous friendships of the Popular Party leader in Galicia.

The most striking thing is that the vast majority of citizens probably don't even know what this argument was about beyond the political boundaries.

“Of all of us here, the only one who has maintained a close relationship with a convicted criminal is you.” Pedro Sánchez

"His entire candidacy is built on a big lie, Your Honor, the promise of independence, of an autonomy that he doesn't have because he's just a puppet of the far right." Pedro Sánchez

"The sad truth is that for 25 years you have lived with, condoned, and encouraged the corruption of your party, which is the most convicted party in the democratic history of our country. You have thrived by covering up corruption." Pedro Sánchez

In Feijóo's case, when he asked the Prime Minister, "Do you know who you're living with, what brothels you've lived in?" he was referring to a sauna business in Madrid where the late Prime Minister's wife's father was apparently once an accountant. The PP leader's remark surprised even those most accustomed to the current bad manners in the House. Party sources later explained that they had been nursing that slug for some time and that now, with the sexual harassment issue in the Socialist Party, the time had come to spill the beans. They added: "Let them deny it if they can."

In Sánchez's case, the allusion to Feijóo's criminal dealings referred to an old photo album of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and drug trafficker Marcial Dorado during a pleasant vacation in Galicia. An old story claims that the photo was circulated by someone in Feijóo's own party to prevent the current leader of the PP from taking the train in Galicia to travel to Madrid and take over the party after Mariano Rajoy's fall in 2018. Perhaps those photos prevented this in 2018, but it's clear they didn't prevent it four years later during Pablo Casado's ouster after losing the battle with Isabel Díaz Ayuso.

Perhaps one of the keys to the unruly animosity between the leaders of the PP and the PSOE lies precisely in the personal nature of the political leadership. Sánchez is a leader without replacements in his ranks, and Feijóo only just finalized his leadership at last Sunday's congress.

This political prestige mincer even includes trips back in time, like the one the Prime Minister undertook in his review of the integrity of former presidents, in which he almost placed Presidents Aznar and Rajoy on the same level as the until recently untouchable Felipe González.

Yesterday's session was astonishing in many ways, but this last one left more than a few stunned, not so much by the seriousness of what was said, but by the political moment it describes.

Everything is being taken to the limit.