The pressure is very much on central government, not to mention the frontline medical staff and essential workers who are keeping the country ticking over, and not all parties are united with what the Prime Minister Sanchez is doing to lead the country through the virus crisis. Sanchez is aware that he may have been winging it to a certain extent, he even apologised the other day for 'flip flopping" but he has just thrown more wood on the fire.
The government's official slogan is 'United, we will stop this virus". But, as the death toll mounts and Madrid uses emergency powers to issue economic diktats and Catalonia breaks ranks and asks central government to send in the army to help, the politics of confrontation has returned with a vengeance. This week the principal opposition grouping, the centre-right Partido Popular, labelled Sanchez a liar while the far-right Vox - the third-biggest force in congress - has called for Sanchez's resignation and replacement by a government of national unity. Sanchez's ban on all non-essential work has neither gone down well with big business nor the unions, the latter of which are beginning to mumble about taking industrial action over the lack of clarity and continual tweaks to the lockdown restrictions.
Can Sanchez handle the heat? I hope so, we need strong leadership.