“The issue is, do we have another leader to replace Pedro Sánchez?”.
Former Spanish congresswoman Hana Jalloul Muro is among her prime minister’s closest allies in the European Parliament.
“It has not been an easy mandate. Every day is a survival day, all the challenges that prime minister Pedro Sánchez has faced have been unprecedented,” the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) MEP told EUobserver.
They had faced the Covid pandemic, a volcanic eruption in the Canary Islands in 2021, and the migrant crisis in the Ceuta enclave in north Africa in the summer of 2026, she said – not to mention the corruption allegations levelled at his close relatives.
And he now risked being unseated in a snap election on 5 October, called after nationwide protests against lack of affordable housing.
Sánchez’ PSOE party is trailing behind the centre right people’s party (PP) in the polls, which is also growing closer allied to the increasingly successful far-right Vox party.
“These elections will pit two models against each other,” Jalloul said.
“On the one hand, a progressive government that defends public services, improves wages and pensions, expands rights and protects the social majority. And on the other, a model represented by the PP and Vox, which, wherever they govern, have opted for privatisations and policies that risk widening inequalities,” she said.
Ceuta-linked election
Jalloul, who spoke to EUobserver at the European Parliament (EP) in Brussels, used to lecture on international terrorism at the University of Madrid, before she became vice-chair of the EP’s foreign affairs committee.
And she recalled the heated debate on the Ceuta incident on 31 July, including accusations that Morocco had engineered it to gain leverage over Spain.
“This is a crisis that we could not expect,” she said.
But had there not been a “good relationship with Morocco, [we] would never be able to return 90 percent of the 70,000 people that came in less than 72 hours,” she added.
This article continues, but the full version is available only to EUobserver.com subscribers. Visit account.euobserver.com/membership