In risk zone: the political warnings of the blackout | Opinion

1. The blackout. I was surprised by the lukewarm with which President Pedro Sánchez has faced The fall of the electricity supply last Monday. The threat was not beyond midnight, but The communication short circuit, In a society that boasts of its infinite exchange capacity, it had an undeniable impact. From the physical confinement of the pandemic we go to the mental isolation of disconnection. In our technological paradise, in which we walked through the networks with a simple movement of the fingers, was it thinking suddenly the range of instruments of the new relational model turned into objects without spark, perfectly useless except to generate frustration and melancholy? Well yes. Even if only for a few hours, the closure of the interconnection doors condemned us to self -absorption. Only radio was still within our reach As a voice that penetrated the territory of darkness, a processing state that leaves us at groad. And the light returned.

Since his first appearance, President Sánchez, who is distinguished by some political intuition that allows him to affirm his character at unexpected moments and, in a way, anticipate countercurrent, was rarely content. He arrived at the political scene caught with the step changed to the PSOE, first, already Mariano Rajoy, later. Neither the old socialist guard nor the PP understood their warnings. When the heirs of felipism took him off, road and blanket, he toured Spain and won a match that lived in the disenchantment after so many years of hegemony. And then, Rajoy, caught counterpart, was so baffled that He anticipated the defeat taking drinks with his companions.

This sense of the opportunity, in the middle of Trump’s tariff rant crisis, took the president to The recent visit to Xi Jinping that the right wanted to ridicule and that has allowed him to show a strategic versatility that others in Europe can never appear, pointing to his gesture the null intention to fold to the ravings of Washington and anticipating roads to capitalize on the mutation of world forces relations. And in this independence of criteria, we must also place his absence of the burial of Pope Francis. In full media ecstasy, with the press overturned in Rome, he announced without more than The Spanish delegation to burial He was presided by the head of the State and he stayed at home: a wink to republican secularism.

For this intuitive vein that the president has demonstrated, I am surprised by the slow and flat rhythm with which he has faced the crisis of the blackout. With a low profile, on the other hand, and with bureaucratic and not very relevant government appearances, it does not contribute to reassuring citizens in times of bewilderment, in which the feeling that we are in a risk zone. People need explanations accompany her. And this time Sánchez has not yet taken the front. Not that the opposition has been better: rather the opposite. It is known that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has no other reflection than jumping against anything Sánchez says. The ideas and proposals do not go with him.

In crisis situations that are due to exceptional factors and have causes not directly attributable to the rulers, a bewilderment and insecurity are generated in the citizens that, in general, the one that governs always has an advantage to capitalize. Citizens want to feel the protection of the State. And it’s not time for noise. But for this it is necessary the presence and word of those who send. Sánchez has spoke his performances, always with a certain inaccuracy. A fear of getting wet with him and that favors the deployment of the spent conspiratory interpretations.

Of course, authorities cannot improvise or get carried away by conjectures. But there are many explanations that people require, rightly. And what it costs to understand, for example, is that the electricity of two countries – Portugal and Spain, and a part of France – can depend on a point whose destruction in five seconds cause the catastrophe. People need the amparo, and this begins with the word.

2. The context. « We had never seen the future so uncertain »; « Where are we going to stop? »; « What will be from Europe, unable to defend yourself? » I have rarely heard as repeated expressions of bewilderment and disorientation as in recent times. Citizens require attention. Removed despotism Donald Trump is the icon of a disturbing political and moral crisis.

Are The ideas and values ​​that made Europe and the United States will believe depositories of freedom and democracy those in crisis? Or are we facing an economic and social order (a system of domination) in which Russia and the United States could converge, with China of an advantage and Europe in Almoneda, as it likes to stage Trump, who since his simplism does not realize that, if Putin gives him rope, it is precisely to make him crazy? The episode of the blackout leaves us a rosary of warnings, who will capitalize them? What makes President Sánchez doubt when capturing this moment of opportunity? Or is he also prey to bewilderment?