Madrid (EFE).- Television returns to host a single round and in prime time a face-to-face debate between the two main candidates for the presidency of the Government for general elections: Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
They have had to spend eight years to attend a melee in the general campaign. The last one faced the then president and leader of the popular, Mariano Rajoy, and the one who was a candidate for the socialists, Pedro Sánchez.
The challenge started on June 5 of the latter, ready to debate, if Feijóo accepted it, up to six times, in the six weeks that remained until 23J.
The former Galician president has preferred to risk everything on one bullet, with no margin for error because there is no, as on other occasions, the possibility of amending mistakes on the return leg.
So television, in this case the Atresmedia set, will once again dress up to receive the two ‘fighters’, ruling out the three-way debate with the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, which Feijóo proposed.
Pedro Sánchez feels comfortable in this format, which did not materialize in the two elections of 2019, and Feijóo has experience from his time at the helm of the Xunta de Galicia.
Proof of the importance that the Prime Minister gives to his appointment on set with the popular leader is that he emptied his agenda of rallies this first weekend of the campaign to prepare it thoroughly.
On this occasion the moderators of the debate, which will begin at 10 pm, will be Ana Pastor and Vicente Vallés.
Gonzalez and Aznar
The first time that two candidates for Prime Minister faced each other in a television debate was in 1993, with Felipe González and José María Aznar as protagonists.
With a duration of more than two hours, the first of the debates was held in the Antena 3 studios and was moderated by Manuel Campo Vidal, while the second, on Tele-5, was hosted by Luis Mariñas.
Aznar, who opened the first debate, had prepared it conscientiously together with his team of political and image advisers.
He was the winner according to most of the polls.
The following Monday, the two applicants met again. On this occasion, in a more tense and tense climate. The socialist candidate took it “to the points”.
Shoemaker and Rajoy
The two face-to-face debates between José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and Mariano Rajoy for the 2008 general elections were organized by the Television Academy. In both, the polls carried out after the fact gave the Socialist candidate the winner, with more advantage in the second than in the first.
The duration of each debate was 90 minutes and without breaks; the first was rough and with an agreed and very corseted format, in which the monologues of both followed one another almost without interruption.
The most remembered of that broadcast was when the then leader of the opposition resorted to the technique of ‘storytelling’ to talk about what was forever dubbed “Rajoy’s girl”.
The second debate had a similar tone to the first and was moderated by Olga Viza.
Rajoy and Rubalcaba
For the general elections on November 20, 2011, the candidates of the two parties with the highest representation, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy, held a single debate, on November 7.
Presented by Campo Vidal and lasting two hours, the most watched minute was when Rubalcaba insisted on asking his opponent what he would do with unemployment insurance if he were elected president. In addition to unemployment, the economic crisis suffered by Spain was the other major issue.
According to different polls carried out for written media, Rajoy was the winner, although a short distance from the Socialist candidate.
Rajoy and Sanchez
In the 2015 general elections, the only face-to-face was held on December 14, again with Campo Vidal as moderator, and with Rajoy and Sánchez on both sides of the table.
It was a heated debate, where mutual accusations of lying were exchanged and which ended with Rajoy’s “we have come this far”.
Sánchez had told him before that he was not a decent person and the then president answered him by calling him mean, petty and miserable.