Pedro Sánchez, the phoenix of Spanish socialism

Come to power in June with the gesture of a juggler, the socialist Pedro Sánchez He won his first elections on Sunday after years of disappointment during which many ended their political career. Now, to continue to reign in Spain, you have to negotiate alliances.

Constantly attacked by the right during the campaign, subject to disqualifications as "criminal", "traitor" or "public danger", the 47-year-old economist consumed his resurrection after collecting the worst results of his party in 2015 and 2016.

And it's that with 122 seats out of 350, well above the 85 of the last generals, the socialist party PSOE was placed at the top of the legislative this Sunday.

Considered politically dead after his two electoral defeats and internal rebellion defended by the leadership of the party, Sanchez took the reins of the PSOE and was surprised in June to overthrow with a motion of censorship his conservative predecessor. Mariano Rajoy, sunk by corruption in the popular party.

For that, he had heterodox allies: the radical left of can, Basque nationalists and Catalan separatists, what the law baptized as "Frankenstein Government".

At the edge of the razor, he resisted for ten months until Catalan separatists reduced their budgets for 2019 and decided to call early elections.

Faced with the aggressiveness of the right-wing and far-right opposition, which broke with force at the Spanish Congress, Sanchez has called for focus on the left-wing vote as a barrage against the threat of "involution" from his rivals.

And she took advantage of the remaining ten months of government to show the minimum wage increase of 22%, the promotion of equality between men and women with eleven women among its 17 ministers or the attempt to unfinished exhumation of dictator Francisco Franco from his mausoleum.

"He takes a position of president and president, exploiting this image of the one who governs and who must have a position of moderation, solvency, serious," he said. AFP Cristina Monge, political scientist at the University of Zaragoza.

Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón was born on February 29, 1972 in Madrid, in a well-to-do family: head of the company father and mother.

Married with two daughters, studied economics in the Spanish capital, obtained a master's degree in political economy from the Free University of Brussels, then a controversial doctorate in a private university in Madrid, suspected of plagiarism. firmly denied.

Teenager, the basketball player measuring 1.90 meters joined the PSOE in his youth and was successively advisor to the mayor of Madrid from 2004 to 2009 and deputy.

He entered the story of the game in July 2014 by winning the first primary elections held in the formation.

But the following years would be a real roller coaster. After the losses of 2015 and 2016, he fell on October 1 of this year into an internal rebellion of his party, which made him responsible for the bad results.

A few months later, he returned to the roads with a handful of faithful and, despite the animosity of the "establishment" of the PSOE, during the primaries of May 2017, won the regional president of the Andalusia, Susana Díaz.

"They did not support it in the party, but it is its strength: to count on the militancy and be very coherent," said activist Esther López, a 51-year-old administrative officer at HQ of the PSOE.

Even acknowledging that he's never been his favorite leader, he acknowledges that he "made the illusion to a party that was in torpor".

For Sánchez, who has titled his biography "Manuel de resistencia", the race is not over yet: "winning does not mean governing," he said in recent days.

And to govern, it will be necessary to combine with rivals who will not facilitate it: either a left alliance with Podemos and the approval of the Catalan independence, or a coalition with Ciudadanos (center-right) , very belligerent during the campaign.