The president's face

In more than sixty years of experience, this columnist has only written a couple of articles on the physical appearance of a head of government. And those two articles were used to interpret the faces of a genius of imagery named Pedro Sánchez, to whom a saying by the acclaimed Friedrich Nietzsche can be applied: "Your faces have done much more than your words." Pedro Sánchez's faces have always been very powerful. They demonstrated his ability to adapt his gestures to what he wanted to convey. And it must be repeated: if politics is largely theater, Pedro Sánchez has been and continues to be a tremendous actor. Possibly the best actor on the European stage.

That's why I chose his presidential effigy as a symbol of the moment: Pedro Sánchez showed off a new face on Spanish Television. And it had two news effects: in other media, his aggressiveness toward the judges investigating people close to him, who only needed to accuse him of malfeasance; in private conversations, a bar-room question: What's wrong with the president? Visibly, he seems visibly worse off, as if suffering from some ailment. His eyes lack the liveliness we used to know, but rather the mark of sadness. In the interview, he barely smiled, as if he were saving himself for the meeting with Starmer in London. And his thinness seems excessive, even now that there are medications that allow weight loss and bikini surgeries as rapid as they are ostentatious. This physical change announces something, although we don't know what. Perhaps he doesn't know either.

Forgive me in Moncloa, but this raises questions and demands for forming an opinion.

Forgive me at Moncloa Palace, but this raises some questions and demands for forming an opinion. The starting question: why does it seem like Sánchez has suddenly lost weight, if we'd already seen him like this before August? It's an optical illusion, because we see very little of it. Pepa Bueno's interview was the first in a year. If we had seen him lose weight day by day, as they have seen in the palace, this feeling of sudden weakness wouldn't exist. The explanation that Vice President María Jesús Montero tried to give at the time—"he's suffering and is at the forefront, pushing Spain every day," she missed adding "with how exhausting that is"—was slightly comical, due to the softness of the description. And the government's news services lacked the instinct or the will for transparency to come forward, explain the reasons for such thinness, or simply inform the public that the president's health is perfect, as we would hope.

The face may not be the mirror of the soul, contrary to what the classics say. But it is a portrait of a person at a particular moment, and if it's the highest ruler, it can also be a portrait of the country's mood. A good face is an indication of good health, even happiness. A bad face means, at the very least, that you haven't slept well. In Mr. Sánchez's case, it's not that he has a bad face; he suffers from it. He suffers from a bad face, and people have the right to ask why. His advisors know, and how could they not, the dictum of the famous Canadian photographer François Brunelle: "The face is the communication tool par excellence." If it is used pessimistically, pessimism will be transmitted to the nation. And, if we're looking for opinions from people who demonstrated their ability to think, allow me to quote Lope de Vega: "My labors were seen in my face / finding (...) good uncertain and disillusionment certain."

Has the president's face begun to find what has been done uncertain and the disillusionment of his own work certain? That would be magnificent, because it would mean the emergence of self-criticism, a phenomenon unknown to most governments. Therefore, I dare to ask one last question: Is there anything in public life that embitters the tenant of Moncloa? Is there anything that justifies Quevedo and his "throwing your face matters, there's no reason to look in the mirror?" Although what we've seen only reflects an erroneously aesthetic slimming, there are reasons for a positive response. I cite the four most basic ones: the tightrope of governing by making pacts with partners with conflicting interests; feeling like the confessed victim of a "campaign of dehumanization"; that image he considers unfair of a man whose only ambition is power; and perhaps most painful: international isolation. He lost influence, even his European presence, and yesterday, when he was trying to regain it at the Paris summit, his plane broke down and, of course, he wasn't going to travel on a scheduled flight.