Rajoy accused of lying by opposition leader, whom PM calls “pathetic”

Sánchez sought to deconstruct Rajoy’s assertions on the economy and to portray him as an elitist politician

“I am a clean politician. But your name and your personal history are linked to Bárcenas,” stated Sánchez, in reference to the ex-PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas, who allegedly kept secret side accounts detailing illegal party financing and under-the-table cash payments to party leaders.

Sánchez also told the conservative PM that he is out of touch with Spaniards’ everyday concerns.

“You don’t trust the people you govern because you don’t know them; get out of your plasma screen, go out on the streets,” recommended Sánchez, referring to Rajoy’s habit of appearing at press conferences via video link.

The conservative leader adopted a condescending tone to return the blows.

“I think you read the wrong speech. You would’ve done better with a more balanced, moderate, sensible speech,” said Rajoy. The veteran politician then aimed more verbal blows at the 42-year-old opposition leader, who was elected in primaries last year in an effort to breathe new life into a party that was languishing at the polls.

“Mr Sánchez, I take you a lot more seriously than many of your own people do,” he told him. “You were pathetic.”

The tone reflected a new sense of urgency among Spain’s main political parties, which are facing an unprecedented situation since the return of democracy in the late 1970s.

The protracted economic crisis has given rise to new political protagonists, who have real chances of success at this year’s general elections. If voter intention polls are correct, Podemos, the new anti-austerity party, and Ciudadanos, a non-nationalist Catalan party that will run at the national level, will secure enough congressional representation to end the PP-Socialist hegemony.

The Socialists were dealt a crushing defeat in November 2011 elections after voters blamed the administration of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for mismanaging the economic crisis and making budget cuts to the welfare state in an effort to avert a national bailout, such as the ones Portugal, Greece and Ireland were forced to request.

It is as much of a mistake to not change a single comma as it is to liquidate our democratic Constitution”

Pedro Sánchez, Socialist secretary general

Now Sánchez is seeking to position his party somewhere between the “immobility” of the ruling Popular Party (PP) and the “breakaway” of Podemos.

“Faced with the breakaway of some and the immobility of others, I defend my party’s constitutional reformism,” said Sánchez, who proposes making changes to the 1978 Constitution. “It is as much of a mistake to not change a single comma as it is to liquidate our democratic Constitution.”