“El PP está corriendo el riesgo de hundimiento y descomposición” [ .. ] “La rebelión está minando la autoridad de Rajoy” [ .. ] “Todavía no han analizado la razón de sus derrotas, cuando la opinión pública las tiene muy claras”.

[ .. ]

El 15 de marzo del 2006, el diario conservador más influyente de Europa, el Telegraph londinense, afirmaba que el PP estaba “haciéndose añicos, el solo”, por esta razón: “Las “teorías” y las “dudas” sobre la autoría del 11-M están hundiendo al PP en un proceso suicida, defendiendo unas posiciones que no resisten ninguna evidencia”. [¿Tiene cura el cáncer de las “teorías conspirativas”..?].

Sin sacar, todavía, todas las consecuencias de aquella deriva suicida, víctima del cáncer de las “teorías conspirativas”, Financial Times, el diario financiero más influyente de Europa, estima hoy que el mismo PP sigue sin analizar las razones de sus derrotas, corriendo el riesgo de hundimiento y descomposición:

Spain’s conservative Popular party was once a by-word on the European right for its cohesion and discipline. Now, in the wake of a second successive general election drubbing and the departure of senior party officials, the PP looks in increasing danger of falling apart.
[ .. ]
But Mr Rajoy must first quell an internal rebellion that is undermining his authority as opposition leader. Some senior party figures have launched an unprecedented attack on Mr Rajoy in the hope he will not stand for re-election at a party congress in June.
[ .. ]
This has always been a delicate balancing act. The party is an amalgam of many ideological families, including former Francoists, Christian Democrats and other conservative Christians, and economic liberals.

The PP blamed their 2004 electoral defeat on a swing in popular opinion following the then government’s response to the terrorist bombings on Madrid’s transport system. As a result, says Charles Powell, a historian at the University of San Pablo-CEU, “there was no debate about what went wrong, about why they lost”.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the re-elected Socialist prime minister, believes the PP is experiencing delayed shock. “This is a crisis they should have had four years ago,” Mr Zapatero said last week.

In spite of their second electoral defeat in March, Mr Powell says that the PP still does not have a diagnosis about why they lost.

Nevertheless, he believes Spain’s main opposition party will not break up. “They went through horrible infighting in the 1980s which kept them out of power. Memories of this are still too recent,” he says. [Financial Times, Leslie Crawford. 9 mayo 08. Infighting threatens Rajoy’s opposition grip].

● Esperanza, Mariano y el síndrome tóxico.