My teachers used to say that a single day in Moncloa is a human week. Imagine the first seven prime ministers of democracy: Adolfo Suárez , who was in office for 1,697 actual days (4 years, 7 months, and 23 days), equivalent to 32 and a half years of work behind him dismantling the Franco regime, legalizing the PCE, signing the Moncloa Pacts, calling the first elections, approving the Constitution, but also suffering, like others later, the brutal scourge of ETA terrorism (the “years of lead”), the underlying military discontent, and the severe internal instability of the UCD that forced his resignation.
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Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo , “the brief,” was no less intense despite his 644 actual days (1 year, 9 months, and 6 days): on 23-F, the day of his investiture, the attempted coup d’état took place. He would be the president during Spain’s entry into NATO, as well as the Divorce Law. He also managed the mass poisoning from colza oil and dissolved the UCD after the electoral collapse of 1982. His equivalent is 12 and a half years in office.
The wear of a president comes from the very loss of internal and external control
Felipe González , with 4,903 actual days (13 years, 5 months, and 3 days), is not just the longest-serving president of democracy, but he has an equivalent of 94 years in office. An almost centennial life as prime minister with which he justifies his tone as a Yoda master to this day: the universalization of public health and education, massive industrial reconversions with historic general strikes and peseta devaluations, Spain’s entry into the European Economic Community, but also infrastructures like the AVE or highways, Barcelona 92, the Expo, and the very harsh end of the cycle marked by the dirty war of the GAL, as well as constant corruption scandals.
José María Aznar , for his part, led for 2,904 actual days (7 years, 11 months, and 12 days). The equivalent of 56 years of Aznarism such as the anti-terrorist pact, the economic miracle (without so much turbo later) with Spain as a founding member of the Euro that would lead to a final stage of civil discontent like the Prestige and the great social fracture due to Spain’s support for the illegal Iraq War, as well as the disastrous crisis management after the 11-M attacks.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with 2,804 actual days (7 years, 8 months, and 4 days) was the architect of great advances in social rights (same-sex marriage, Equality and Dependency Law), the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, and the historic announcement of the definitive end of ETA violence in 2011. But he will be marked, beyond current troubles, by the violent impact of crisis management of the Great Recession of 2008 (which the government took a long time to acknowledge), the bursting of the real estate bubble, and the drastic public spending cuts demanded by Brussels in the May 2010 crash. The equivalent of almost 54 years.
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We are almost done: Mariano Rajoy with 2,355 actual days (6 years, 5 months, and 12 days) will always be the prime minister of the 2012 labor reform, the containment of the total financial bailout of the Spanish economy, the abdication of Juan Carlos I in favor of Felipe VI. His equivalent of 45 years in office is complemented by the birth of the procés with its two illegal referendums, the subsequent application of Article 155, as well as a wave of major troubles with the milestone of being the first president removed through the first successful motion of no confidence in Spanish democracy.
And we arrive at Pedro Sánchez : 3,206 actual days (8 years, 3 months, and 12 days), the second prime minister with the most total days. An equivalent of 58 years, madness: primaries, motion, failed budgets, election, coalition, the pandemic, pardons, amnesty, troubles and more troubles, the volcano, the DANA, and now Ceuta, in a context of high institutional polarization, AI, and constant hatred in a hyper-fragmented political scenario.
If you look closely, the definitive wear of a president never comes from the intensity of the opposition, but simply from the very loss of internal and external control.
There are 10 months left until the legislature ends in 2027. Plenty of time to regain control. The equivalent of 6 years in which in a single day in Moncloa you can do much more for Spaniards than in your entire life, because a day there is a human week.
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