The twelve male and female apostles of President Sánchez
Ah, they didn't know? Yes, you did. The president of the Government has chosen a dozen apostles to preach Sanchismo, the new monotheistic religion in which one must believe to the letter in order to achieve eternal political salvation.
The apostles and Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón's feminist touch, the female apostles, are not represented in any of the Easter processions. Their figures and carvings do not process through the streets of Seville, Valladolid or Murcia, nor in the rest of Spain. But everything will be done. They are working on it.
Seven men and five women apostles are the chosen disciples, whom the Messiah of the PSOE has entrusted with the mission of spreading the word that the Amnesty Law "puts an end to confrontation and opens a period of reconciliation and harmony". None of them believe it, not even the one who roasted the butter, but it is the divine mandate they have received and they comply with it to the letter, of course.
The work of the twelve evangelists is to show their faces in interviews - because they have more faces than backs - on television sets and radio stations. Also in gatherings, rallies and assemblies. "Go and teach that you will love Pedro Sánchez above all things and proclaim the good news".
When the frogs breed hair
The good news? What good news? Men of little faith! What good news is it going to be? The one and only true Amnesty Law. The one that in time - more or less "when the frogs grow hair" - will be embraced by all Spaniards. It will be then, when they place the PSOE ballot paper in the ballot box, that the doors of the kingdom of socialism will open for them and they will reach the salvation of their souls.
Until a few months ago, Sánchez's favourite disciples repeated like the Slave Chorus in Giuseppe Verdi's opera Nabucco that "amnesty is unconstitutional". But suddenly, O my homeland, si bella e perduta... the heavens opened, a ray of light came down from heaven, they fell prostrate on their knees and heard the word of the new Messiah: "Va pensiero, make it known that truth is my way of doing politics".
And the male apostles and female apostles, despite themselves, set to work to spread the divine word and the cult of Sánchez, the only true president. First of all, the Saint Peter of Sanchismo, Félix Bolaños, the minister who holds the powers of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes. He is the head of the new redemptive church that will spread the great work of the Saviour of Socialist Believers.
Among the messengers, Judas Iscariot, the apostle who sold Jesus of Nazareth for 30 pieces of silver, could not be missing. José Luis Ábalos took Sánchez to the top, but then he bet on Koldo and Delcy Rodríguez's suitcases and was expelled from the left side of God the Father. And among the female apostles, the number one is María Jesús Montero, first vice-president and finance minister. With diction and grammatical phrases incomprehensible to ordinary mortals, she is ecstatic every time she is near the beautiful shepherd of souls.
Sánchez's last supper with his twelve apostles
Patxi López, the PSOE spokesman in Congress, is the equivalent of Paul of Tarsus. But instead of falling off the horse and embracing Christianity, he has done so from a colt to remain faithful to Sanchismo. And what about the apostle Santos Cerdán? Secretary of Organisation of the PSOE, he lives up to his surname and, instead of negotiating, he accepts without the slightest scruple the demands of Puigdemont's separatists and whatever else is necessary.
The bellicose spokesperson for the Sanchista Vatican is the Zaragoza-born female apostle Pilar Alegría, who in her spare time serves as Minister of Education, Vocational Training and Sport. Another figure highly revered for his discretion and poise is Óscar Puente. He was forced out of the mayor's office in Pucela and lashed out at the opposition in the investiture session of the Cordero Divino. In gratitude, he has him on his left in the Apostolate of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.
The president of the Congress, the female apostle Francina Armengol, is a milkshake of virtues. In the crosshairs of the masks' plot, every time she is reminded of it... she passes word. The apostle Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who I am told has an altar in every Guardia Civil barracks, where the men and women of the armed forces pray to him every day, arouses great fervour.
Like Leonardo da Vinci's famous fresco, the representation of Pedro Sánchez's last supper with his apostles is completed with three characters, a picture yet to be painted. Margarita Robles, Minister of Defence, who awaits her prize like water under the bridge while avoiding pronouncing the word amnesty. The unspeakable José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, known by some as the two-legged Bambi, a tireless defender of the Amnesty Law, who is in the world because there has to be everything.
Esther Peña, spokesperson for the PSOE's Federal Executive since January, closes the sacred scene of the dozen chosen ones, who never misses an opportunity to boast and project the follies and barbarities of her party's formation onto her political adversaries. In short, never have so few done so much damage to so many.