The Spanish case is characterised by its unique political tension. Despite in most countries political parties have reduced confrontation in front of necessity of unity and joint efforts -as in the case of Spanish neighbour Portugal, that had stand out by the support the opposition provided to the government-, in Spain political parties have not made such concessions. Indeed, the present crisis seem to have deepened the gap between the leftist coalition government of PSOE and Podemos and the right opposition headed by PP and followed by the new far-right party Vox. PP and VOX have accused the government of lack of prevision, inadequate economic measures, lying about the death’s figures, hiding information with partisan ends, and incidents in the buying of sanitary material. [27]

Although Sánchez proposed a reedition of the “Moncloa Pacts” -founding text of the Spanish transition- to face together the reconstruction of the country, the opposition have rejected the proposition. This lack of trust and unity between Spanish parties have also been evidenced in state of alarm's prolongations votings, where progressive reduction of support made more difficult to approve this measure each time. For example, in the voting for the fifth prolongation 162 deputies from PP, Vox, Compromís and Catalan independentist parties voted against the extension. [28]  

Nevertheless, government problems not only come from the political sphere but also from the citizenry. Although public opinion about Pedro Sánchez seems to have been moderately improved, the public opinion about the government has clearly get worse since the start of the pandemic. One of the most relevant and polemic issues that have damaged the image of the government and has been used to protest against it was the celebration of national demonstrations on Mars 8 for the International Women’s Day. The government has been blamed for not cancelling the act in front of the risk of the propagation of the virus. 

According to a survey elaborated by the Newspaper “Público” and the foundation “En Acción” in collaboration with “Sináptica” [29] -held online between 28 April and 4 May to 1.001 participants from different Spanish regions and above 18- one in four respondents consider the general management of the coronavirus by the Government "bad" and one in three rate it as "very bad” (negative opinions account for a 59% in front of positive ones that only accounts for a 35%), an interesting point in face of public responses in other countries, like Bulgaria and Netherlands, where support for government management seems to have been much more positive. However, it is important to highlight that there are significant partisan differences regarding public opinion, as we can se on the graph below.

Nevertheless, despite the generalization of public dissatisfaction with Governments management, there is a measure that stands above the others regarding the consensus and support generated around it: the restriction of mobility.

People disconformity has been reflected in the multiple protests that took place in the country, specially during the month of April. To the casseroles from the balconies as a sign of protest against the government, protesters added demonstrations on the streets -despite its prohibition because of security measures-. The demonstrations that started in wealthy neighbourhoods of Madrid, were expanded to the rest of the country. The most relevant demonstration took place in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid street Ferraz, where hundreds of people -approximately 450 according to Efe agency [30] -have come to ask for the resignation of the president. These acts also included “scratches” to some government members as José Luis Ábalos and Pablo Iglesias [31] Also, due to accusations of skipping security measures, the far-right party VOX called for demonstrations from cars in approximately 50 different cities, including Barcelona, Sevilla, Málaga, Valencia, Córdoba or Bilbao. The act, that took place on April 23, attracted miles of people that blocked several avenues with their cars. In Madrid, an estimated 6000 vehicles attended the protest. [32]

Evaluating the actuation of the Spanish government regarding present crisis caused by COVID-19 is still a difficult task as the pandemic still supposes new challenges to every government all around the world. There are further important decisions to be made in the future that will determine how this crisis will unfold and end. However, considering the measures taken by the Spanish government until the present some observations could be made.

The first key aspect that must be considered is the great number of infected cases and deaths in the country in comparison with the rest of the world -being in a significant position in world rankings-, but specially in comparison with the rest of Europe, where in general the other countries seem to have performed better as they have suffered a lower impact of the crisis, both in sanitary and economic terms.

The disaster lived in Spain seem to indicate a bad or at least insufficient management of the crisis. Errors started in the first stages of the crisis due to the lack of initial responsiveness to the crisis. Indeed, errors can be placed even before the start of the pandemic by considering previous maintenance of the Spanish sanitary system, considerably weak -because of lack of capacity and resources to confront a health emergency of these measures-. However, the state of the sanitary system alone cannot be considered as the main cause of Spanish failure. The sanitary limitations to ensure proper contention of the virus -dealing with great amount of patients-, could have been compensated or substituted by greater and earlier anticipation as well as ealier decision-making (adopting needed measures when the first clues appeared) around an strategy cantered on early detention, trying to hold back further spread of the virus at the very beginning. Indeed, other European countries with a similar sanitary situation -as for example Portugal, with a similar GDP proportion of healthcare expedienture and amount of hospital beds per 1.000 inhabitants- didn’t experienced similar catastrophic results probably because they succesfully adopted main measures much more rapidly. Thus, this fact that clearly indicates that problems in Spain went further beyond sanitary conditions.

Then, one of the main aspects we can highlight at the roots of Spanish unsuccessful management of the crisis is its late response. Although there was already a very complete pandemic plan since 2005, the measures indicated on it were not implemented at the necessary time. While other European countries taken only few days from the start of the pandemic on their respective countries -so the number of cases on the moment when measures were adopted was not so dramatical-, in Spain, same measures took longer to be adopted -when the number of cases was already really alarming-. It is very significant that while other countries like Portugal, Hungary or the Check Republic started to adopt measures from 1 to 4 days -or even before- first cases were detected, in Spain frontiers were not closed and movements were not limited after nearly 15 days and the closure of non-essential production after 27 days [33]

It is true that in other European countries the virus entered later -that is, first infection cases started to appear later- and then they have more time to react and, most importantly, the previous experience of other countries as examples. However, we cannot hide the fact that Spain already had significant clues and reasons, like the situation in China or in Italy as well as the warnings from some experts, that could have been considered as significant to have implemented 2005 pandemic plan’s previsions much earlier to avoid in this way the great exponential growth of cases in the country.

Focusing on measures we can notice that the lack of prevision and effective preventive measures on the first stages of the crisis, have been “compensated” or substituted by the great hardness and restrictiveness of subsequent measures in order to impede further exponential growth. In comparison with other European countries, Spain has been one of the countries in which civil liberties had been limited in a greater extent. Spanish quarantine has been one of the hardest in Europe, regarding both its length and restrictiveness: while in other countries some walks or outside activities were allowed, in Spain, every outside movements have been prohibited for months. This is a key point when analysing the future situation of the country: although the strict measures appear to have been effective in their task of greatly reducing the exponential growth of the virus, the cessation and limitations of majority of working activities for so long -as required by that strict measures-, specially regarding tourism and the service sector -of which the country is very dependent- have had (and still will have) serious economic consequences for the entire country, with a decline of Spanish GDP of nearly a 13% -as estimated by the IMF-. 

Further problems on crisis management had also come from lack of the necessary coordination between Autonomous Communities - a problem that has contributed to the already controversial debate about the properness of the current form of territorial organization of the country. Both the initial lack of power and experience of the central health ministry to manage the crisis as well as the great initial disparities on the procedures applied by each territory and the lack of coordination, have made evident some of the gaps of current organizational model. The great centralization applied by the central government to manage the crisis -centralizing all the competences on the central government and applying the same measures for the entire territory- nor only seems contradictory with respect to the decentralized system of the country  but also it seems surprising when we compare it with other federal countries, like Germany or the USA, were no such measures where adopted: decentralization model was not affected and each region or federal entity applied different measures. In Spain, the reflection of those who are experiencing the crisis and of external observers is that the collaboration mechanisms of the territories with the central government must be strengthened.

These problems have been accompanied and aggravated by great tensions both in the political and the public sphere. On the one hand, critics from the opposition and the citizenry can be seen as a logic and even positive response as it forms part of the democratic exercise of government accountability, punishing country’s leaders for their bad management of the crisis. However, on the other hand, the lack legitimacy and unity that have predominated in other European countries could suppose a great problem for Spanish government, making more difficult to still managing this crisis in following months -when new sprouts are expected to happen- as they will lack the needed legitimacy for implementing the necessary measures in the future.

This beautiful song from the Spanish group “Vetusta Morla” was made in collaboration with other famous Spanish singers as a tribute to the sanitary professionals and all the people that have contributed to the common societal effort of facing this crisis. The benefits generated by this song are being donated to the Superior Council of Scientific Investigations (CSIC) in order to contribute to the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2.