Joaquín Leguina: ”Ayuso is not a fool at all and has been able to connect with the people of Madrid”

When you ask him if he has thought about signing for a party other than the PSOE, where he has been a member since 1977, he smiles slyly and, denying the major, blurts out “Please! I am 80 years old and my convictions are intact.” Joaquín Leguina (Cantabria, 1941), a doctor in Economics, demographer, brilliant writer and the only socialist who has presided over the Community of Madrid for 12 years, never thought that he would face an expulsion file as a militant, nor that he would see the decline of the once powerful Madrilenian Socialist Federation of which he was general secretary. He says that Pedro Sánchez is vindictive, exudes hatred, and mistreats all those who do not think like him.

His daily life in the pandemic has changed a lot, he barely goes out, except to go to the office, he has just written a book and is moving around the neighborhood: “I try to survive and now, since I am vaccinated, I want more of a social life,” he says. He is a man of the left, a book Social Democrat who feels free to value what his opponents do: “Ayuso is stupid, he doesn’t have a hair”, and mercilessly criticize the drift of the PSOE. “For the spectacular defeat we have suffered in Madrid, the worst results in our history, the person responsible is not only Pedro, but also the ass-lickers he has in Moncloa,” he points out. He is genius and figure, he is still an erupting volcano and he does not mince words.

Did you think that you could be expelled from the party where you have been a member all your life? Who will make that decision?

In the PSOE the only one who has made decisions for a long time is Pedro Sánchez, and by opening an expulsion file on me they intend to divert attention from the disaster in Madrid, when the only person responsible for the debacle is called Pedro and surnamed Sánchez. The truth is that I did not think that I could be kicked out of the PSOE, they could call my attention, they can criticize me, but kicking me out is an exaggeration.

They have also attacked Nicolás Redondo, and you have wondered if they will fire Guerra and Felipe.

I don’t think they dare with Felipe or Guerra, but they want to purge a generation. They are going after me and the others because of the anger after the spectacular defeat in Madrid, where the PSOE has obtained the worst results in its history. They can cover the matter with smoke screens, but those responsible are those who rule in Moncloa, and not only Pedro, but also the ass-lickers he has there. They have mounted an absurd campaign, which can lead to disaster at the national level. That, together with the shameful agreements with Bildu, the transfers with the Catalan separatists and the assumption of the impositions of Podemos. All of this is taking its toll on them.

Well, Gabilondo and Franco have already had their heads cut off, so things are serious…

From Moncloa they have tried to turn José Manuel Franco and Gabilondo into puppets at the service of Sánchez. Ángel is a person of high intellectual prestige, who has been rector of the Complutense University of Madrid, and an excellent Minister of Education. Therefore, even if they try, they are not going to destroy his prestige by forcing him to resign. If I had been in Angel’s shoes, I would not have accepted that candidacy because the list has been made from Moncloa, and it was clear that they were going to use him.

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Lastra: “Where have you worked? What written work do you have? Let your Curriculum be compared”

Adriana Lastra has asked you, the old socialist guard, to step aside so that you don’t overshadow young people…

We don’t have to throw ourselves aside because they have already thrown us out. I’m just saying compare this lady’s resume with that of any of my generation. Where has she worked, what written work does she have? What is this youth? Being young is not right, and even less so in a city like Madrid, with a high average age. Before saying those things, that lady inform herself.

In your opinion, what was the reason for the debacle in Madrid?

To various factors and unforgivable mistakes. They have been following the imbecilities that Pablo Iglesias has said in the campaign, and there are also deeper errors. The mistake is called Bildu, it’s called ERC, and also having carried out an insulting campaign calling those who weren’t going to vote for them fascists. In the end, by calling everyone fascists, they have managed to whitewash that definition and make it worthless.

How do you assess the Ayuso effect?, who has been called everything, mentally weak, incapable, etc.

Silly Ayuso doesn’t have a hair. And above all, she has been able to connect with the people of Madrid at a time of great suffering. He is a sensible person, who in this year and a half of pandemic, deaths and tragedy, which has led to a tremendous economic and social crisis, has tried to save the furniture, for example, of the hotel industry, a sector in which six hundred a thousand people. She has helped them and the hoteliers have thanked her by voting for her. When the left called her a fascist, she only had to appeal to freedom, and hence her success. I do not believe that the results of 4-M have been so much a success for him as a failure for the left in general and for the PSOE in particular.

What do you think of Iglesias’ departure and how far away is the promise of 15-M?

The 15-M phenomenon was appropriated by Iglesias, but it was much broader. Podemos is a group that was born from the Faculty of Political Science, which they, by the way, have destroyed. In that faculty there were very high-ranking professors and these shitty youngsters have managed to kick them out. Podemos was successful due to the erosion of bipartisanship due to the corruption of the PSOE and the PP, but they lack a political project. How can you have a Venezuelan project for Madrid or for Spain? The one who has taken advantage, in the end, has been Errejón, who is much more intelligent and much more moderate than Iglesias and has managed, with a newly created party, to unseat the PSOE and Podemos.

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Have they tempted you from another game to leave if they finally expel you?

But if I just turned eighty, how am I going to go anywhere? The PSOE has given me a lot, perhaps more than what I have given to the party, but my militancy and my integrity remain intact.

“Sánchez is vindictive, he exudes hatred. It is not good for a party that is above him”

Are you really willing to go to court if you are expelled?

Of course, I already have lawyers, who are the PSOE, and I will answer the charges against me, because nothing they say in the file holds up. I will make the discharge statement, and if they are still determined to expel me, I will go to court.

You have said that “if they kick you out, you’ll sweat it out”, that you’ll be back when Pedro Sánchez leaves…

What I said was more nuanced: that, if they expel me, as the castizos from Madrid say, I’ll sweat it. Then in the headline they removed the part of the castizos, but if the case arises, I will return when Sánchez leaves.

Government: “I have to admit that there are good ministers: Planas, Escrivá and Calviño”

What is your opinion of Pedro Sánchez? Is he a better or worse leader than Felipe or Zapatero were?

It is evident that all the leaders of this party have had their merits and their defects, like everyone else, but the current secretary general is the one who is giving the people of this party the worst treatment. He mistreats everyone who doesn’t think like him. Pedro Sánchez is vengeful, he exudes hatred and that is not good for an organization that is well above his worth.

What do you think that the PNV has achieved the prison competition, one of its historical claims, that other socialist governments denied them?

Giving up prison powers means that when the ETA killers reach the Basque jails they will be released. And, as if that were not enough, the PNV now wants to get money back from the Quota for assuming prisons, which is a scandal. I am going to give you a piece of information: in 2020 the deficit that was created in the Basque Country in pensions was six billion and they do not pay a penny. That deficit and those pensions are paid by the rest of us Spaniards, because that is not in the Quota. Those things have to be told, it’s enough to cheat us.

File: “If they are still determined to expel me, I will go to court and I already have lawyers”

What does not improve either is Catalonia, which already smells of elections, and Puigdemont continues to flee, living happily…

Catalonia only has one solution, which Pedro Sánchez neither tries nor will ever try: number 155. As for Puigdemont, we’ll see what happens. He, of course, knew very well why he was going to Belgium, because unfortunately for the European Union, there they continue to believe that the Duke of Alba is still alive.

What do you think of the legal gibberish created after the state of alarm?

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Indeed, a gibberish has been opened, not only legal, but political. I agree that a law should be made for situations like the current ones, and it could have been done. The problem is that this man (Pedro Sánchez) has Parliament locked up and closed, and uses it for his convenience, and prefers to pass the responsibility on to others. Hopefully there is not a new wave, that the number of deaths does not rise, because if that is the case, we will have to ask for responsibilities. The only thing I agree with Sánchez is that the solution is the vaccine.

At least Fernando Simón has recognized after seeing the crowds last weekend that he was wrong when communicating the situation…

Fernando Simón has said incredible things, he has lied and used unthinkable arguments during the worst time of the pandemic. I am not going to blame him for the deaths, but he has behaved not as a doctor or as an independent technician, but as a politician under Moncloa’s orders.

“Catalonia only has one solution that Sánchez does not try and will not try: 155”

Do you think that Susana Díaz has a newscast left in the Andalusian federation, the most important of the PSOE?

I don’t know if Susana has a newscast left, but she has a lot of responsibility in everything that is happening in the PSOE. You cannot throw the Secretary General out of the window, as she did with Pedro Sánchez, without going down to the floor to see if he is dead. He was not only alive, but he also won the election. Susana Díaz has been wrong in almost all the steps she has taken

Do you think that we are going to an early general election after what happened in the Community of Madrid or precisely for that reason Pedro Sánchez will exhaust the legislature?

The logical thing is that he tries to extend the legislature until the end, to separate it from what happened in Madrid, but many analysts believe that extending it will be worse for him. I still hope that after the blow in Madrid Pedro Sánchez corrects something, if he does not correct it, we are headed for disaster.

You have written that the PSOE has allowed itself to be invaded by particularist, identitarian and supremacist movements. Is the matter so serious?

Yes, the situation is very serious and those policies are what have allowed what happened in Madrid. In Moncloa, things that were common to all Spaniards are being abandoned, for example the PSOE has always been in favor of equality and now it has introduced a radical feminism that only says barbaric things, and even wants to impose on us an absurd language that there is no who supports it. The PSOE has nothing to do with radical environmentalism that is in favor of renewable energies…

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