Prime minister Pedro Sánchez will be fighting three battles at once when Spain goes to the polls on Sunday 23 July after a hot, short-tempered summer campaign. Whether Sánchez, leader of the social democratic Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), can pull off an improbable hat-trick will shape not only Spain’s future trajectory but also potentially that of Europe as a whole.
First, Sánchez must save his own political career. His surprise decision to call a general election six months early, after his coalition’s drubbing in May’s local polls, was daring, even possibly self-defeating. Most politicians would have hung on, hoping for a shift in public mood. But like a matador challenging an angry bull, Sánchez waved his capote at voters and said, in effect: “Back me or sack me.”
