Ceuta marks a new low for Sánchez’s PSOE

Lisbon. The diplomatic row with Italy and with what the Spanish Foreign Minister has termed the ‘reactionary international’ does not appear set to benefit Pedro Sánchez’s government or the Spanish left. According to the first polls carried out following the Ceuta disaster, voting intentions for the Socialists have plummeted below the survival threshold to which the PSOE, despite the legal scandals of recent years, still seemed able to cling.

The poll published on Monday by the daily newspaper La Razón puts Sánchez’s party at 25 per cent. In 2023, it had secured 31.6 per cent, which was around two points behind the People’s Party (PP), but still enough to form an alternative majority by allying with a rather diverse range of other parties (the infamous ‘Frankenstein coalition’). This time round, the entire united left (PSOE, Sumar and Podemos) accounts for a meagre 34 per cent – the same percentage as the PP, which is gaining ground, albeit only slightly. As has already been seen in four recent regional elections (Extremadura, Aragon, Castile-León and Andalusia), the PP cannot govern without the support of the far right, which, for its part, continues to gain support. Polls put Vox at 18 per cent and predict it will double its current tally of 33 seats. A second poll released at the same time even shows a slight drop in support for the PP and a more pronounced rise for the far right.

Elections are due to be held in Spain next year according to a timetable that depends largely on the government itself. The natural sequence of electoral events would see local elections in the spring and general elections in the summer, but for some time now many people, including within the PSOE, have been calling for the general elections to be brought forward to spare socialist mayors from the fall in support caused mainly by the government’s unpopularity. The alternative right-wing majority is now taking ever clearer shape, and by the end of the race it will become apparent just how much the left’s strategy of resistance at all costs – championed by its leader, who in 2019 titled his book, which triumphantly chronicled his political career, "Manual de Resistencia" – will have cost the party.

Since 2019, there have been judicial scandals, ‘Frankenstein coalitions’ formed simply to stay in power (the expression was coined by a former Socialist leader, Alfredo Rubalcaba, precisely to illustrate what should not be done in order to govern), one of the worst rail accidents (Adamuz: 46 dead) and the most severe summer wildfires in recent Spanish history.

Finally, the most serious migration crisis in the exclave of Ceuta. To see the hidden hand of neighbouring Morocco in this latest incident – if only in the way it has lowered its guard at the border – is not conspiracy theorising. The difficult geopolitical relations with King Mohammed VI are now public knowledge. His grandfather secured Morocco’s independence, and his father, Hassan II, took advantage of the waning days of the Franco regime in 1975 to occupy the Spanish colony of Western Sahara with the imposing ‘Green March’ – an event frequently cited in recent days to describe what happened in Ceuta on 30 and 31 July. Reacting, as Madrid did, by summoning only the Italian ambassador and thanking the Moroccan authorities for their help in resolving the crisis was not a winning strategy. Nor was it wise to go on holiday immediately afterwards and leave communication strategies to run on autopilot, as in the video in which Sánchez recommends his summer playlist whilst chaos still reigns in the streets of Ceuta. The local Chamber of Commerce estimates the damage at 27 million euros.

Last Sunday, over 10,000 residents of the exclave took to the streets to reaffirm Spanish sovereignty, chanting “Ceuta will not surrender”. Although there were moments of tension, the demonstration was not an outburst of extremist sovereignty activism, but an event organised by the city’s four religious communities: Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu. The highlight was the reading of the “Manifesto for the Unity of Ceuta” by Ramesh Chandiramani, president of the local Hindu community. The first sentence read “Ceuta is Spain”, whilst the rest affirmed the city’s centuries-old pluralism. The only person absent was the government representative, an institutional figure in all autonomous communities (and Ceuta is a municipality, but also an autonomous community on a par with the other regions). The demonstrators called for his resignation, and that of the government he represents.