20 February 2019updated 09 Sep 2021 3:50pm

How the Spanish left is caught in no-man’s land

Prime minister Pedro Sánchez has appeared an unhinged radical to the right but a disappointment to his left-wing supporters.

By Jorge Tamames

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez holds a press conference after a cabinet meeting at the Moncloa Palace in Madrid on February 15, 2019. - Eight months after ousting his rival and taking power in Spain, Sanchez was forced to call early elections, the latest in a series of setbacks for the survivor politician. (Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP) (Photo credit should read PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU/AFP/Getty Images)

In her lucid essay on France’s 1936-38 Popular Front, the philosopher Simone Weil reflected: “The state of imaginations sets the limit within which power can be effectively exercised.” She added: “To sense these things, to keep a perpetual look-out for them, is to know how to govern.” Ultimately, the French socialist prime minister Léon Blum’s incapacity to channel popular élan into state action doomed his government.

Weil’s insight captures a critical dimension of present Spanish politics. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s announcement of a snap general election on 28 April – the third such vote since 2015 – further destabilises Spain’s volatile politics. The outcome remains frustratingly unpredictable.