{"id":136143,"date":"2026-07-01T18:24:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:24:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/136143\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T18:24:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T18:24:34","slug":"santos-cerdans-warning-to-the-psoe-organizations-fall-when-they-believe-the-blow-will-not-arrive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/136143\/","title":{"rendered":"Santos Cerd\u00e1n’s warning to the PSOE: “Organizations fall when they believe the blow will not arrive”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Madrid\u201cFifteen days earlier I was sitting at a table where decisions affecting an entire country were being made. Fifteen days later, I was alone, in nine square meters, trying to understand how I had gotten there\u201d. When it has been exactly one year since he entered prison<\/a>, Santos Cerd\u00e1n has published La ca\u00edda. Poder, relato y destrucci\u00f3n en la era del juicio pol\u00edtico, the book in which he breaks his silence. Throughout 164 self-published pages, he recounts his experiences during the almost five months he was in Soto del Real, explains how he lived the days that led to his downfall, and offers a long philosophical dissertation on Justice and the media. He complains, for example, that public opinion is a \u201cpermanent tribunal without guarantees\u201d that has imposed on him an \u201canticipated social condemnation\u201d and attributes the investigation into him to \u201csomething that was not seeking the truth\u201d.<\/p>\n


\n Read it all
\n <\/a>\n <\/p>\n

\n The former number 3 of the PSOE revolves everything around the “narrative”, a word that appears 60 times throughout the book. And it is that, at all times, he presents his indictment as an exogenous, unexpected and alien fact to him: he believes it was a “story that was written” and that it was the “culmination of something that had been brewing for a long time”. “When the climate is prepared, facts are ordered within a previous narrative”, says Santos Cerd\u00e1n. “It is not debated what happened, but how what happened fits into the story that is already constructed”, he adds later.<\/p>\n

\n When the machinery is activated, those who should think about the presumption of innocence step aside \u201d <\/p>\n

Santos Cerd\u00e1n <\/p>\n

\n Another concept that appears with recurrence is \u201ccrisis\u201d, a word that is repeated on 75 occasions. His thesis is to reduce his judicial case to a \u201creputational and judicial crisis of high intensity\u201d for which neither he nor the PSOE \u2013 without mentioning him \u2013 were prepared and which they were not capable of anticipating and suffocating. \u201cThe signs existed and we did not know how to interpret them,\u201d he laments. In fact, he goes so far as to recommend tools to \u201cprevent the immediate isolation of those who become the focus of attack\u201d. Like him. \u201cOur institutions are not prepared to protect those who serve them when a crisis of this magnitude is unleashed,\u201d he adds in a subtle language and without directly attacking the PSOE.<\/p>\n

\n However, he takes the opportunity to send a warning for the future: \u201cOrganizations do not fall solely because of the mistakes they make. They fall because of the risks they don’t see coming, they fall when they believe the blow will not arrive and they fall when they are not prepared to resist it.\u201d And he alleges that the \u201cmost costly mistake\u201d is to prefer the \u201cdefensive narrative\u201d to \u201csincere self-criticism.\u201d He is indeed clear and direct when, hurt by the party, he criticizes that the PSOE left him unprotected: \u201cAt the most delicate moment of my life and in a matter of hours, I was left without legal coverage, without political support, without resources. Abandoned and stunned.\u201d \u201cWhen the machinery is activated, those who should support you or at least think about the presumption of innocence, step aside,\u201d he insists.<\/p>\n

\"Santos<\/p>\n

The cases against him<\/p>\n

\n Santos Cerd\u00e1n also explains how he reacted when, from the rostrum, he began to read the Civil Guard’s report<\/a> that led to his downfall: \u201cWhat I\u2019m reading makes no sense. Interpretations without basis, statements I don\u2019t recognize and, above all, audios<\/a> that are not my conversations\u201d. When the plenary session ended, he went to his office in Ferraz street and decided to step down: \u201cNot because I recognize what it says, but because I understand what is coming. Nobody asked for my resignation, it was my own decision, convinced that it was my duty\u201d. He makes few direct references to the case of alleged irregularities in public works tenders. On the other hand, he makes no allusion to Leire D\u00edez. The Civil Guard believes that he led the alleged network<\/a> that was maneuvering to torpedo judicial cases.<\/p>\n

\n The decisive factor is not what happened, but what the majority believes happened \u201d <\/p>\n

Santos Cerd\u00e1n <\/p>\n

\n Although he does not enter into refuting or denying the accusations against him, he defends at all times that he is innocent \u2013 he cites the “presumption of innocence” ten times \u2013 and presents himself as a victim of a \u201cmedia lynching\u201d. He also protests because people act as if they don’t hear his explanations: \u201cWhatever I said, the outcome did not change. What is decisive is not what happened, but what the majority believes happened\u201d. <\/p>\n

\"Santos<\/p>\n

\u201cThe architect of impossible majorities\u201d<\/p>\n

\n Santos Cerd\u00e1n also dedicates some pages to talking about his crucial role in enabling the last two legislatures. He defines himself as “the architect of impossible majorities” and presents himself as the one in charge of “turning the improbable into possible.” The former number 3 of the PSOE acknowledges that Pedro S\u00e1nchez’s election after 23-J was the “most difficult investiture in democracy” because it was necessary to “win the trust” of Junts. Of course, he takes the opportunity to boast about his intervention: “While I was in Congress, these balances, not without suffering, were moving forward.<\/p>\n

\n He also recounts that the Spanish president had a “strategic vision” to commission him months before the elections to open a “dialogue channel” with the Junts members: “We could not remain without interlocution,” Cerd\u00e1n recalls. He asked the PNB to “do him the favor” of putting him in touch with Junts, and the jeltzales organized a meeting in Bilbao where he met Jordi Turull. From there, they began to meet with “absolute discretion” for months until they managed to “create a space where negotiation was possible” and which was decisive in enabling the subsequent investiture. Furthermore, just as he did in the Senate six months ago<\/a>, he links the case against him to his role as an interlocutor: “This image [with Carles Puigdemont] was interpreted in many ways. For some, an agreement. For others, a line crossed. For me, the beginning of everything that would come next”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Madrid\u201cFifteen days earlier I was sitting at a table where decisions affecting an entire country were being made.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[65797,51499,42715,53640,50194,15748,50708,304,13178,4942,53639,735,21181,5668,8655,31723,6530],"class_list":["post-136143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pedro-sanchez","tag-arrive","tag-believe","tag-blow","tag-cerdan","tag-fall","tag-not","tag-organizations","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-psoe","tag-s","tag-santos","tag-the","tag-they","tag-to","tag-warning","tag-when","tag-will"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116846124197669861","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}