Ivan Redondo I was on my way to Estremadura that July 10 when his cell phone rang. The Prime Minister called him. The Chief of Staff had to turn around and go back to Madrid. His life had just turned upside down. He discovered that he was not going to become Minister of the Presidency. He knew that this charge was going to be handed over to his most staunch adversary. And he found that it was no longer essential for Pedro Sanchez. He collected his things in boxes and left his office, in the building of Seeds. So far, the inconsequential history of any replacement in the Executive. What happened later, on the other hand, has shaken the political sphere in the capital, perplexed to discover a Redondo a million light-years from that character who had fascinated everyone, as if they were waking up from a reverie. In half a year he has gone from being the court advisor to the president, the strategy guru, the architect of miracles, the fascinating leader who spoke in some kind of encrypted code, and one of the most powerful people in the country to become the target of ridicule and jokes, in the character that those who are in the pomade dodge, blushing for having frequented him.
Nobody can understand how “he has squandered his reputation, his prestige.” No one understands how he influenced Sánchez for so long. There are no simple answers, just a feeling of stupor. Those who know him point in one direction, the human factor: “It’s a question of ego. He has turned forty years old. His dog has died. He has lost the best job he will ever have in his life. It infuriates because he had already told everyone that he was going to be a minister. And what else It drives him crazy, because it is what hurts him the most, is to feel defeated by Felix [Bolaños]“.
Only fifteen days before that July 10, Redondo had communicated to his team that he was going to be Minister of the Presidency. He handed out charges. He presented the project to them. They were going to be, he told them, two years of maelstrom, of “total civil war”, at the epicenter of power. He was to be a member of the Belligerent government, with public projection and even greater influence: in his new ministerial portfolio he also wanted to maintain the two areas that were already under his control, the Presidential Cabinet and the communication of the Executive. After this sprint, he told them, he would retire. He would have fulfilled his golden dream.
“He said that he was going to be Minister of the Presidency, that he had discussed it with Sánchez. If he told him clearly or is it something that he interpreted on his own, we do not know,” explain sources close to Redondo. Yet just a few days later, the promise seemed to be fading. He explained to those around him that he would only accept the portfolio if it included all the departments that he had requested. “He sensed something, he lowered his tone, and on Friday he already says that he is not going to take it, because it was not what he wanted. “On Saturday, Sánchez’s call occurs.” He takes a improper bluff. Either this, or I’ll go. “And the president tried to keep me as chief of staff, but before all or nothing, he said goodbye.
Other sources who spoke with Redondo assure, however, that he had no intention of retiring, but had decided to leave behind his time as an advisor and start a political career. “He became obsessed with becoming a minister. He saw himself as number two for Sánchez. He dreamed of being [Emmanuel] Macron, a political leader without a party, “says one of the people with whom he would have spoken about his future. Socialist sources assure that he planned to consolidate a position of power in the PSOE, something that he wanted to crystallize in the Federal Congress in October.
Redondo denies both claims. Sources close to the former adviser have circulated the version that Moncloa sent two emissaries to pressure him to accept the position of minister and that, when he refused, he ended up out of the Cabinet, a quote later leaked to the media of which has been made public even some sms. The two people who dined with Redondo are Miguel Barroso -he held the position of Redondo with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and is a director of the Prisa group- and José Miguel Contreras, journalist and specialist in political communication. There was dinner, they explain, but the only thing they noted was Redondo’s interest in reaching a ministerial portfolio, if not more.
The conclusion they draw is that you need to build your own story to bury the idea that they kicked him out. That story, that of his voluntary departure, began the same day he picked up his office at Moncloa, when he left a note stating that leaving had been his own decision. “You have to know how to stop,” he wrote then. He expressed himself in the same tone when asked about his departure: he said he was happy and that he had chosen the moment to change his life. His story, however, is difficult to digest in the political sphere: it is not usual for a president to threaten someone to accept being a minister.
Calls to the Ibex
Whatever his project, few understand the decisions he has made after leaving Moncloa. No chief of staff of the Prime Minister had previously walked through television sets, or given interviews to talk about his work at Moncloa. On the contrary. Silence is the unwritten rule of everyone who leaves office. Revealing details and seeking prominence usually detracts from future clients who are looking for discretion and keys to open doors. “Has called half Ibex, but who is going to hire you? If you register someone, it is to open doors for you and help you with the Government. If you can’t help me, you won’t give me anything. After all, Iván is not a great manager, “reason sources from the business world.
“One is never a good advisor to oneself,” concludes an expert political communication advisor who had a relationship with Redondo, trying to figure out why he acts like this. “You want to clean up your image, he needs to show that he resigned from the position of minister, that they did not fire him, “explain sources who were related to him.” The press and the right created a stereotype of an unprepared Sánchez and fed the idea that there was behind a brilliant Redondo pulling the strings. Something was cemented that was not true, a legend”, concludes one of the people with whom he maintained fluid communication.
All the sources consulted point to the appointment of Bolaños as Minister of the Presidency in the trigger for Redondo’s conduct after leaving Moncloa. “What about Felix destroyed himIt was the most painful of all. Because Felix symbolizes the return to the game, the culture of the party. A sense of failure comes over you, because his project was to remove Sánchez from the PSOE“sums up the one who was one of his usual interlocutors.” His head has exploded. It does not rule. I was in a mortal war with Felix, a hostility terrible “, say sources familiar with this tension.
The feeling that has taken hold is that Redondo is wasting all his capital in the interview that grants Jordi Évole in his program. He could not explain why that hype announced conversation between Sánchez and Joe Biden becomes a laughingstock. His looped response “we are in contact” when asked about his relationship with Sánchez did not leave anyone indifferent. “What about Évole it kills him. It is destroyed. He goes from being a courtly advisor to being a chisgarabís, a lunatic, “government sources explain.
Some have wanted to see in their interviews and omens a approach to Yolanda Díaz to help her in her candidacy. The environment of the Vice President and Minister of Labor denies it: “They have not spoken again since he left, “they settle.
Why so long?
When does Sánchez become aware that he must start a stage without Redondo? It is something gradual, all the sources consulted agree. Why did you keep it so long? “When the car door closes and the two of them go, there there is magic. The leader can cry, there are sensations. That unites you so much that you lose perspective“, assesses a specialist in political communication close to Moncloa.
“They were an accumulation of errors and a feeling of boundless ambition “, explain government sources. He did not like his appearance in the Senate on May 27. It should have been a mere formality intervention, but he made headlines with a speech that at Moncloa they interpreted as a rehearsal of his role as minister, as if he were giving the reply in a control session: “I would throw myself for a barranco by the President of the Government, “he said, to the amazement of Moncloa. It was raining in the wet. Just a few weeks before, on March 4, Ángel Gabilondo suffered a debacle in the elections that crowned Isabel Díaz Ayuso. Although Redondo has denied having directed this campaign, sources who collaborated in it deny it. They claim that he led the contest and constantly imparted doctrine to Gabilondo. The candidate himself regularly visited Moncloa those days and specialists in Redondo’s team they elaborated their speeches.
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“On May 4 at eight [de la tarde] I kept saying that there was dead heat [entre PP y PSOE]”says a socialist leader.” That day the Prime Minister woke up thinking that, really, the PSOE could win because it was what Iván told him, “the same source abounds. Moreover, they explain, the Sanchez’s anger It is based on the fact that he himself, as president, assumed the Redondo story and assured several leaders that they could even win in Madrid. That thorn, they say, marked a before and after.
There was another red flag: the motion of censure of Murcia, in March. Redondo was out of that operation, which some sources interpret as one of the first signs that show a progressive distrust which was increasingly weighing on the achievements of the Chief of Staff. Redondo had led Salvador Illa to the top position in the Catalan elections in February. He advised Sánchez to present the motion of censure to Mariano Rajoy when others doubted. He anticipated scenarios, knew how to understand with United We Can and received the praise of the sharpest feathers. “His ego killed him “say those who knew him. “I’m not going to go in. I’m in my new life”, he gives for every answer.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com