Zarzuela will not change the protocol after Pedro Sánchez’s delay in the parade on October 12

More than the protocol, the clocks failed. This Wednesday, King Felipe and Queen Letizia had to wait 50 seconds in their car for the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, to arrive at Paseo de la Castellana, to start the events on October 12. Despite the wait, Zarzuela does not contemplate changing the protocol so that these situations can be repeated. The protocol rule is clear, it indicates that the kings are the last to arrive at the acts and that the rest of the authorities have to wait for them. So whose mistake was it? Were the times miscalculated? , did they rush too much in Moncloa? “They have told me to leave Zarzuela at quarter to minus and I have done that,” Sánchez told reporters during the huddles at the Royal Palace reception. The distance from Moncloa to the Paseo de la Castellana is 17 minutes, of course the president’s entourage has a shuttle that makes way for him and could travel that route in less than 15 minutes. The kings only wait when they are hosts Zarzuela has declined to speak of the incident this Wednesday, “the development of the acts, and the issues of protocol and security are not commented on,” palace sources maintain. But close sources insist that the protocol is clear. The norm stipulates that the kings only wait if they are the hosts, as happens when there are state visits, or as when Queen Letizia, during the NATO summit, waited for a few minutes for the American first lady, Jill Biden, in an act of the AECC (Spanish Association Against Cancer). A way also to express hierarchy and respect.Is Sánchez in a hurry to avoid boos?The truth is that since his first parade on October 12, 2018, where he was profusely booed, President Pedro Sánchez has been reducing waiting times . Every time he hurries more. From the more than ten minutes that he was in 2018 he endured the shower of screams, to the little more than two minutes of margin with which he arrived last year. In 2020 Sánchez arrived at the military stop on time. He was in the courtyard of the Royal Palace Armory. The covid-19 protocol abolished the parade and the act was behind closed doors, without an audience and without boos.