On Sunday September 24th, a large protest was held in the Barrio de Salamanca in Madrid led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo and joined by his two predecessors Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar.
How many people were there? Sixty thousand says the right-wing press; maybe 30,000 says the left-wing sites. This despite organising free buses from the provinces (plus a bocadillo), and assurances from the Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso to expect a crowd of 200,000
The subject (so dear to the PP) was nothing less than: ‘that there is no room for both first and second class citizens’.
Feijóo 'stood in front of the crowd like Bruce Springsteen' (says an article unkindly – he has trouble pronouncing the name of the singer). ‘I’ll defend the equality for all Spaniards’ (he’s referring to the Catalonian issue) ‘even if it costs me the presidency’ he told his supporters.
The demonstration was, in a sense, a giant group hug – plus a reminder of the common enemy and the hope for another election soon...
And maybe too – a message from the top, that Ayuso’s time is ‘not yet’.
From Barcelona, Pedro Sánchez had this to say about the event: “They are demonstrating against a socialist government, but I'm sorry to tell them, there is going to be one”.
While it was a Partido Popular protest, other fellow-travellers were most welcome to join in, and one news-site at least found an entrepreneur selling Francoist items (flags, mugs and caps).
The protest was against the supposed deals that Pedro Sánchez would be making to gather enough votes to be returned as president later in October assuming that Feijóo were to lose the vote for an absolute majority on Wednesday.
Which he duly did (172 for – 178 against).
And then a second vote for a simple majority was held on Friday - with no change for the embittered candidate - leaving the field open for Sánchez somewhere down the line.
Last week's Madrid protest was a bit disorganised, maybe a little pointless, but it reminded Spaniards across the country that Madrid for the conservatives is not only the capital city of Spain, but also the only city of Spain. There’s a comic map of SW Europe I saw somewhere that shows the borders but only features three names: Portugal, France and, er, Madrid.
This, it seems, works against them.