The Partido Popular has made sacrifice the central message of its first campaign video, turning Alberto Núñez Feijóo's disputed pledge into a direct clash with PSOE. The party says the left does not understand the effort required to keep ordinary lives and projects moving.
The footage opens on everyday work: a shop shutter rises, children head to school and someone studies. It avoids institutional settings, later showing workers in bars and workshops, staff in meat and bakery production, industrial workers and medical personnel. It also features people performing care and domestic work, members of the armed forces and a childbirth scene.
Feijóo made the pledge at the PP's first major pre-election event at Madrid's Ifema. He promised a government that would ask Spaniards for sacrifice while rejecting the idea that citizens should applaud their leaders. The party presented the elections scheduled for 29 November as a contest over Spain's national reconstruction.
Isabel Díaz Ayuso attended the event, along with Madrid mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida. Former prime ministers José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy were also present.
Feijóo shared the video on X with the message “La del sacrificio, la del esfuerzo, la de la esperanza... ¡Viva España!” Partido Popular presents sacrifice as the country's daily contribution, with a reward expected later. The music adds a religious and patriotic charge: La Esperanza de María, a processional pasodoble by Alejandro Blanco Hernández, is performed by the Virgen de los Reyes musical group and draws on Seville's Holy Week tradition.
The framing answers criticism from PSOE. Democrata's account of the speech says Feijóo paired his promise to ask citizens for sacrifice with a commitment that a future government would assume responsibility and not abandon people in difficult circumstances. That allows the PP to describe “sacrifice” as collective effort, not a direct announcement of cuts.
Ester Muñoz gave the clearest explanation in statements to the media in Madrid. She said Feijóo meant that Spaniards' effort should once again be worthwhile. In her account, people do not reject sacrifice itself; they reject the idea that others should live from their sacrifice.
The PSOE's official account on X responded immediately, reposting Feijóo's remarks and sarcastically inviting voters to imagine what else the PP's campaign manifesto would contain. The response shifted the argument from moral language about effort to the message's possible consequences for voters.
Muñoz also turned the dispute toward Pedro Sánchez. She described the president of the Government as a moral reference point for criticism aimed at her party's leader and accused him of lying to Spaniards. She referred to him as a presumed jewellery smuggler and alleged that he had used power and influence in rescues involving public money.
Muñoz presented those accusations as evidence that Sánchez was not the humanist or socialist he claimed to be. She alleged that he was keeping what belonged to everyone and using public influence for personal gain. These remain political statements by Muñoz, not established facts.
The argument now turns on who owns the meaning of sacrifice. Partido Popular presents it as a shared national burden that should produce results; PSOE treats the same word as a possible signal of unpopular measures.
PSOE's response has given the PP room to attach the phrase to work, family responsibilities and study. No approved PP economic programme connecting the slogan to specific tax measures has been reported. Nor has an approved social or budgetary plan tied to the campaign message.
