The Cunning of Sánchez and the Awakening of Feijóo

Pedro Sánchez understood something before anyone else did: elections are not won only with votes. They are won with timing. And he acted accordingly. He scheduled the election in the middle of the summer, at the worst possible moment for his opponent, knowing that the Popular Party was euphoric after the regional victories. They had just swept several contests and believed they were cruising comfortably. The problem is that the one cruising comfortably was Sánchez.

The maneuver was simple and effective. When your adversary believes he has already won, you force him to run in conditions where enthusiasm evaporates. Summer disperses voters, dilutes mobilization, and weakens the momentum of victory. What looked like a triumph in the making turned into an unexpected tactical trap.

Sánchez did not invent political cunning, of course. But he practices it with remarkable discipline. He studies the terrain, identifies the moment of maximum advantage, and then moves with precision. In that sense he behaves more like a chess player than like a conventional party leader. He calculates tempos, forces reactions, and places his opponent in uncomfortable positions.

For months the Popular Party seemed incapable of understanding the nature of that game. Its strategy consisted mainly of waiting. Waiting for Sánchez to make a mistake, waiting for scandals to accumulate, waiting for fatigue to erode the government. Waiting, in politics, is often another way of losing time.

The opposition in Spain has developed a curious habit: it confuses patience with passivity. It believes that electoral victories will arrive automatically, as if governments collapsed by simple inertia. But power rarely behaves that way. Power resists, reorganizes itself, and looks for new opportunities.

Pedro Sánchez knows this very well. His entire career is proof of it. He lost control of his party, was pushed out of leadership, rebuilt his position from outside the institutional structure, and eventually returned to power. Few politicians in Europe have demonstrated that level of resilience.

This is why the Spanish political scene often produces a strange paradox: the government appears weak, but the opposition appears even weaker. In that context, the advantage remains with whoever occupies the seat of power.

Something, however, seems to be changing. Alberto Núñez Feijóo has begun to show signs of awakening. Slowly, cautiously, but unmistakably. For a long time he appeared comfortable in the role of administrator of waiting: prudent, measured, avoiding unnecessary confrontation.

That attitude had a logic. Feijóo built his career in Galicia as a manager rather than as an agitator. His style was technocratic, sober, institutional. But Spanish national politics demands something else. It demands conflict.

The awakening of Feijóo, if it truly materializes, will consist precisely in that: accepting that politics is not only management but also combat. That an opposition leader cannot simply administer discontent; he must organize it.

The risk, of course, is that the awakening comes too late. Politics has a peculiar rhythm: when a leader finally understands the nature of the battle, the battlefield may already have changed.

There is a syndrome that sometimes appears in hotels during breakfast. When you arrive late at the buffet, everything still looks abundant, but the best dishes are already gone. What remains seems sufficient, but the opportunity has passed.

Feijóo must avoid that syndrome. He must avoid arriving late to a political moment that is already transforming. If he wants to convert electoral strength into real power, he will need more than patience. He will need initiative.

Because Sánchez has already demonstrated that cunning alone can keep a government alive for a long time. But cunning also has limits. Eventually, a political adversary appears who stops reacting and starts acting.

If Feijóo truly awakens, that moment may arrive.