Spain’s turn to listen and learn

The 50th anniversary of Portugal’s return to democracy reminds Spain that a transition isn’t a revolution.

For one day at least, all eyes were on Portugal.

Then Spain happened. Again.

A discrete country left alone to face the Atlantic and contemplate its continental solitude, not much happens in Portugal. Nothing click-baity enough to wrestle media attention away from the other side of the Iberian divide anyway.

April 25th, 2024, alas, was supposed to be Portugal’s day, a moment for Europe to salute the 50th anniversary of the peaceful Carnation Revolution that toppled the longest dictatorship in Europe.

And besides, in 2025, Spain would have its own moment to “celebrate” five decades of post-Franco freedom. Pedro Sanchez, however, decided that this was the perfect day to consider resigning as prime minister, pointing to how viciously personal Spanish politics has become and the threat that misinformation poses to the country’s democracy. He gave himself five days to decide whether “all this was worth it.”

Sanchez’s announcement lurched Spain back into its business-as-usual political disarray. Ticking clocks counting down to the Monday morning decision sprung up on the screens of news programs where long tables of tertulianos clashed as Sanchez asked himself…