A blank ballot and a warning to Sánchez

Former prime minister Felipe González said on Thursday, 22 October, that he will vote blank in the general election on 29 November, because no party represents him. He made the remark at a leaders' meeting organised by the Círculo Empresarial de Málaga, where he was asked whether he stood by the blank vote he first announced in February. He said he did, arguing that a blank ballot is a positive vote that expresses a lack of representation rather than an abstention. When pressed on whether the decision was final, he qualified it and said he was not sure. He said the current PSOE under Pedro Sánchez does not represent him, and that the opposition seems to aim only at removing Sánchez without offering a clear country project.

“I don't hear anything that truly represents me.”

González said he would keep voting if he did not feel represented, and that he would welcome an alternative country project even if it was not to his taste.

Housing decrees and the Permanent Deputation

González called the upcoming vote in the Permanent Deputation on two housing decrees "antidemocratic", noting that the Congress of Deputies had rejected the same two decrees on 2 October. He said that approving them after the plenary had said no amounts to ignoring the rules of the game. He said he felt embarrassed by the political use of the Permanent Deputation and argued it should act only on matters of maximum urgency, citing the Ceuta crisis and the DANAs as examples. He accused Sánchez of trying to govern by decree and said the government had gone four years without passing a budget, which he described as a breach of the Constitution. He called for pacts among all political actors and a coordinated public-private plan linking central, regional and municipal government to build housing in an orderly way.

“It is simply antidemocratic, it does not respect the rules of the game.”

Milei and the 29 November election

González called Argentine president Javier Milei a rude man who insults everyone, and said that lack of civic and political education is hard to justify. He joked that if Milei visited Spain "15 more times", Sánchez might win, adding that such visits would energise support for the PSOE. He credited Milei with being a brilliant economist who is fixing things, but said Argentina is in recession. Asked whether Sánchez could win back public trust, González said an electoral process is never decided in advance.

AI warning and global uncertainty

González also forecast a crisis in artificial intelligence companies that could spread to other firms and push markets into a "batacazo", a sharp fall. He said it could happen before the end of the year, and admitted he was not sure, since he is "not a specialist", but he believed there was a serious problem. He said global uncertainty makes it much harder to build business projects that need a long horizon. He also warned of a "rebellion of the serfs" if political interference in the conduct of large technology companies combined with an AI crisis. He said the uncertainty was what worried him most, and the remarks came during the Círculo Empresarial de Málaga's 'Liderazgo y visión global' leaders' meeting.