Pedro Sánchez once again focused this Sunday on the massacre perpetrated by the State of Israel in Gaza. During a rally held in Malaga, launching the PSOE's pre-campaign for the 2026 Andalusian elections, the Prime Minister expressed his support and admiration for the participants in the protests against the genocide in Palestine and against the presence of the Israel-Pro Tech team in the Vuelta a España, which marked the latest edition of the cycling race and led to the cancellation of the final stage of the race this Sunday."Spain shines as an example and with pride. It takes a step forward in the defense of human rights. We agree on a just cause, such as human rights. Long live the Spanish people!" he emphasized hours before the protest in Madrid.
Amid cheers, applause, and Palestinian flags (projected on television screens and waved by rally attendees), Sánchez further denounced the human rights violations committed by Israel."Today marks the end of the Vuelta a España. Respect and recognition for the athletes. And our admiration for the Spanish people who mobilize for just causes like Palestine," the Socialist leader emphasized. These words, with which he acknowledged the citizens who demonstrated, resonated deeply at the event, which also featured María Jesús Montero, First Vice President and the party's candidate for these elections.
"What is the opposition saying about the barbarity in Gaza? It's saying nothing," the Prime Minister added, thus attempting to emphasize the contradictions within the PP, which is more focused on condemning the Vuelta protests than the Israeli-led massacre in Gaza.
Following this afternoon's incidents in Madrid with the cancellation of the stage, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has blamed Sánchez for"inducing and allowing" the incidents in Madrid.
Shortly before, the response to Sánchez came from the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who reiterated her attacks on those demonstrating for Palestine at La Vuelta this Sunday."The message the president has sent, launching attacks against this situation, is intolerable," said the Popular Party baroness, according to Virginia Martínez."Of course, you have to protest freely when you feel like it, but there are many places to do so, not to coerce athletes," she added.
"A president must call for coexistence, for understanding, and not further incite a situation, not use it to change the pace of the front pages, to change the message in talk shows, like shifting focus to what interests one person and leaving sports in the dust," Ayuso continued. The Madrid regional government announced this Saturday that it will take"appropriate legal action to ensure that acts of violence" are not "repeated" and that their "perpetrators can be punished and all those responsible can be held accountable."
This has become one of the most politically charged editions of the Vuelta a year, due to the protests. Pressure has led to the Israel Premier-Tech team removing its name from the jersey. However, the harm caused to cyclists by some of the activists' actions, which have forced the route of several stages to be cut short, has also been questioned. The Ministers of Justice, Félix Bolaños, and Sports, Pilar Alegría, have defended the right of those attending to demonstrate and its compatibility with sport. However, this Saturday, the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, lamented on X the attempted boycott of a sprint finish of that stage."Instead of ministers encouraging it, the Government should condemn it, denounce it, and prevent it," he tweeted.
Fortunately, Spain is not like that.
— Alberto Núñez Feijóo (@NunezFeijoo) September 13, 2025
But how sad to have given such a shameful image in the Vuelta Ciclista a España.
Instead of ministers encouraging it, the Government should condemn it, denounce it, and prevent it. pic.twitter.com/oHRdXHjZ6o
Madrid had been sealed off this Sunday to ensure the final stage of the Spanish cycling race ended without incident. This much police presence hasn't been seen since the last NATO summit.
Managing “insults”
The Socialist leader took advantage of the event in Malaga to defend his administration and the progress made in social policies in the face of"insults" from the right and far right. Among these, he highlighted housing policies, a battleground between the PSOE and the regions governed by the PP. Sánchez wants to champion the solution to this crisis and has announced that he would require digital platforms to remove from their listings 53,000 tourist apartments that had applied for registration in the Single Registry of Temporary Accommodation and that have presented irregularities."So that they become permanent rentals for young people and families in this country," he argued.
As he often does at party events, Sánchez focused on the social achievements of his seven years in government; in contrast, he insisted, to the lack of proposals from the right and far right, who only engage in insults."Remember what the leader of the opposition said: 'We came to beat Sánchez, we didn't come to insult,' and look where they are, in insults and in the opposition," the president harangued, directly comparing the PP president with the Vox president:"Feijóo has become a poor copy of Abascal."
Sánchez recalled the defeat his government suffered this week with the vote against the reduction of the working day, for which he directly blamed the PP, recalling that this party opposed other measures that benefit the"social majority", such as labor reform, the revaluation of pensions and the tax on banks and large fortunes.
“The Spanish Government speaks with an Andalusian accent”
María Jesús Montero also referred to these initiatives, emphasizing that"the Spanish government's policies are very good for Andalusia": "It seems they were made for Andalusia." Thus, the PSOE candidate for the Andalusian Regional Government sought to refute the argument of comparative grievance raised by Juan Manuel Moreno, head of the regional government, which he reiterated this Friday when he asserted, at a rally in Alhaurín el Grande (Málaga), that there is"no decision taken by the Sánchez government that would not harm Andalusia."
While for Moreno, the debt relief approved by the government"is a trap" to appease Catalonia, Montero presented it as precisely one example of the central government's commitment to the Andalusian community."It means precisely that the Spanish government has an Andalusian accent, because the Andalusian accent is not just about speaking it, it's about looking after the interests of Andalusia," the Minister of Finance emphasized, noting that this region, with 19 billion euros, is the one that benefits most from the debt relief:"Your stale argument, that pits regions against each other, falls apart when debt relief is saying the opposite."
Montero emphasized that it is precisely in those areas where the Andalusian Regional Government has jurisdiction that Andalusians encounter problems. The Socialist leader gave the example of healthcare, at which point the 4,000 attendees who filled the University of Malaga Sports Pavilion, according to the PSOE-A, chanted at the top of their lungs:"Public healthcare." She also referred to education, dependency issues, university policy, and housing.
The management and modernization of public services will be the focal point of the Andalusian Socialists' campaign to mobilize their electorate's vote."Moreno hasn't brought a single project to this land that wasn't hand-in-hand with the Spanish government, and then claimed it as his own," Montero concluded.
Sánchez also went head-to-head with Moreno, accusing him of not being as moderate as he seems."I think he's a very right-wing person. If he's had to lower taxes, it's been for the rich," he said. He also questioned Sánchez's absence from the fires that broke out in Andalusia, questioning Sánchez's delay in responding to the outbreaks in Galicia and Castilla y León, the worst affected by this summer's fires."It's not that he's right-wing, it's that he's quite distant and dismissive in his arguments," the Socialist leader maintained.
