Some witnesses said that the lions of Congress fell silent after 3:30 p.m. on the hot afternoon, the busts of the ancestors that rest in the agenda hallway remained marble, the regent María Cristina was on the verge of leaving the painting in which swears in the Constitution and someone heard Elizabeth II place her hand on the head of her statue. The seats, the translators, the stenographers, the carpets and the fleurs-de-lys that decorate the Table, the microphones, the spokespersons and the social media, were left in stone, which is saying something. The former presidents painted in oil shed a little tear in memory of the Transition.

Nobody, nobody, much less Feijóo, had calculated that Pedro Sánchez was going to blow up the investiture debate of the leader of the PP. It is already difficult at this point in the century for someone to surprise a Chamber that since 2015 has seen everything. The acting President of the Government – accustomed to breaking records – left us all stunned. The PP bench had gone to eat so happy with the candidate’s speech. Feijóo, in fact, strove to make a solid, well-articulated intervention, with a sound program and a motivated criticism of the possible amnesty law requested by the independentists to make Pedro Sánchez president after the 23-J elections.

The illusion that his oratory piece would be inscribed in a prominent place in the history of parliamentarism dissolved when Óscar Puente, former mayor of Valladolid and a front-line socialist fighter, rose from his seat to address the tribune. Joy in a well. Sánchez wanted to burst Feijóo’s debate and found the formula. According to residents in Moncloa, it was just revenge for all the disrespect that the PP has given them in recent years. He an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Respect for institutions is an expression without content in Spanish politics.

The sitting president looks at himself and sees a man who has outlived his gravediggers. Therefore, he considers himself entitled to do whatever he wants. Yes what he did at Feijóo’s investiture. The leader of the PP, on his part and in his seat, does not understand anything about this policy. He doesn’t know why Sánchez is laughing from ear to ear after perpetrating authentic parliamentary sabotage, a hooliganism. The acting president does it because he can do it, he can afford that luxury without anyone in his party telling him: “It wasn’t good, no matter how you feel about it.” He surely knows it, but he couldn’t avoid the temptation.

Perhaps for a flash of a second, the shadow of a train passed through Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s head on his way back to his placid life as regional viceroy protected by the Apostle. He wanted to be the politician who would put an end to the institutional disorder that Spain has suffered since 2015. He presented himself as the successor of the two-party system and the Moncloa Pacts, asking the Spanish people to vote to govern without problems, even with a little boredom. He is a solid leader and a solvent parliamentarian, but he has already realized that Sánchez plays with different cards than his. “And on top of that he laughs.”