What a genius! The collective of superior intelligences grouped in the bosom of BATAPLOF, the Battalion of Advisors of the Moncloa Palace, has invented the Hispanic version of the television programme "Aló Presidente" of the now defunct Venezuelan chieftain Hugo Chávez.
After several weeks of brainstorming and multiple brainstorming sessions, the BATAPLOF has found the right way for the Secretary General of the PSOE and President of the Government to reach the souls of millions of Spaniards and discover who the pious Pedro Sánchez really is.
The prologue to the initiative was your cordial interview with El Gran Wyoming on his nightly programme a few days ago. You cried almost to tears that you were the object of public scorn. You made it very clear to Wyoming: "They try to dehumanise me, they try to discredit me, they try to caricature me, saying that I am the devil, a seven-headed monster...".
Poor man, what you must be suffering. I have pity on you. And vice-president Nadia Calviño has given you a piece of her mind several times: "Pedro Sánchez is an honest person, who thinks in the general interest and not in his own short-term self-interest". A good proof of what Calviño says is your decision to call the general elections on 23 July...
Well, that's the end of it. The BATAPLOF has pulled out of the hat a television programme with the suggestive title of "De trabajo con...", although it could also have been called " Tell me what you presume and I'll tell you what you lack". Instead of being an insufferable Chávez-style monologue, BATAPLOF has come up with an innovative interview format in which you, and only you, are the undisputed protagonist. The guest, a mere "yes, sir".
With ease, grace and aplomb
The BATAPLOF has managed to forge an exciting story based on interviews, of which you are the exclusive host. In a way, they have forged it so that, with your charm and casualness in abundance, you try to surpass the style of Bertín Osborne, a real crack of the entertainment programmes, but whom you, of course, surpass by far!
As president you ask the questions and your devoted ministers are supposed to answer... or you do it for them. Like Chávez during his tenure as head of the Bolivarian government, you and your guest boast of trying to describe and demonstrate the great triumphs achieved during the years of Sanchez's government. And you advance future plans, even up to the year 2043, which is just around the corner, in a display of... "Whoever comes after you, let them plough on".
In the inaugural interview with TeleSánchez on 21 June I was able to observe your ease, grace and aplomb, far removed from the labels of professional trickster, cheat and Pinocchio of Spanish politics that you have been given. Your first guest was the head of the Inclusion, Social Security and Migration portfolio, José Luis Escrivá, whose face and body were chubby from eating well. On the second - 22 June - you sat opposite you the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Luis Planas, who is more relaxed in face-to-face conversation.
With memorised scripts for mutual flattery and verbal rose petals, none of the three of you highlighted the historic achievement of the reduction of sentences for the crime of embezzlement, a measure that, just by chance, benefits the Catalan separatists convicted for their attempt to assault Spanish democracy. Nor have you spoken of the penal reform to eliminate the crime of sedition and give rise to the vaunted "we will do it again".
Not a word about the hidden pacts with the Catalan separatist parties and the pro-terrorist Bildu, so that you and your ministers can continue sitting in your seats. It does not matter. The polls and studies of the Sociological Research Centre presided over by José Félix Tezanos consider your victory on 23 July to be a certainty. And you know that Tezanos is not even a tenth wrong in his vote estimates.
The three characters you are missing
In the two episodes broadcast so far, as a humble and not at all vain man, you have emulated the late singer-songwriter Cecilia, a great promise of Spanish music in the 1970s, who lost her life in a car accident in August 1976 when she was only 27 years old. In your talks with Escrivá and Planas you have hogged the cameras and played the role of the bridegroom at the wedding, the child at the christening and the dead man at the funeral, just as the famous song "Dama, dama" by the late Cecilia describes.
But there is a trio of ingredients missing to make your programme go around the world as it deserves. They would be like salt, pepper and oil. I suggest, O son of the Sun, that you invite the President of the United States, Joe Biden, to your programme. The same one who left you stranded at the back door of the White House, albeit with a standing microphone for your meeting with the thousands of journalists from all corners of the earth.
And to China's Xi Jinping, who, as the self-appointed mediator of the Putin-Zelensky war, your fine words of peace and harmony went in one ear and out the other. So much so that you had to take refuge in the Spanish Embassy in Beijing to boast to a few Spanish journalists about your irrelevant intermediary work.
The finishing touch, the one you should definitely call on your programme, is the President of the European Commission, Germany's Ursula von der Leyen. You know she is in love with you and is looking forward to your role as the EU's rotating president from 1 July as a beacon and guide to the world. Her praise for your long hours of sleeplessness in pursuit of Spanish prosperity would be the straw that would tip the scales of the general election in your favour.
But there is one small aspect, almost insignificant if you like, that creaks in the BATAPLOF's attempt to whiten your image in the eyes of the Spanish public. What happens, amantísimo Pedro, is that a large part of Spanish society is aware that, as our proverb says, "I know you bacalao, even if you come in disguise".
