“Domacle”: Perez-Reverte's comment on the speech of the Senator of the All Front

Tucuman Senator of the Frente de Todos, Sandra Mendoza, became a viral trend this week because of the error she made by citing the legend of the “sword of Damocles”, following her speech in the upper house when the agreement signed between Argentina and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was being debated. The impact on the furcio was such that his intervention caught the attention of renowned Spanish writer and journalist Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

“It's Argentinian, I think. But if he comes to settle in Spain, he predicts a brilliant political career. He has the right touch, tone, verb, class to succeed here. Anyway. It has everything,” Pérez-Reverte commented, with a mock that doubly criticizes both the Spanish and Argentine political systems.

The 70-year-old intellectual shared from his personal Twitter account of more than 2 million followers a video shared by Infobae economist and columnist Manuel Adorni, which reproduces an edited excerpt of the speech highlighting and exposing the grammatical errors that the senator made.

“The first thing we have to consider when evaluating the terms of this agreement is that when Alberto Fernández's government took office, the International Monetary Fund was already among us with its Domacle sword (sic), which by definition represents the imminent and near danger, that is... a serious threat that must be inexorably faced (sic),” said the official legislator during the session in the Senate that approved by a majority the extended facilities agreement with the multilateral body.

Pérez-Reverte is not only a literary professional, in his role as a writer and journalist, but he is also a member of the Royal Spanish Academy since 2003. During his career, he worked as a war correspondent for the RTVE signal. He is the author of several fiction books, including the saga of The Adventures of Captain Alatriste and the Falcó trilogy.

As a political commentator, Pérez-Reverte does not skimp on questioning the Spanish government of President Pedro Sánchez (PSOE), whom he came to call “bad, ambitious, arrogant and cynical.” That is why he took advantage of Mendoza's viral video to question, in an elevation shot, the political leadership of his country.

Sandra Mendoza's case generated a stir in public opinion and on social media. It is that in the previous speech all eyes were on the upper house because, there, the approval of the agreement with the IMF would be defined. In that context, the term “Domacle” became a trend.

With the multiplication of criticism, the senator tried to tone down the repercussions. “I apologize to society if I offended someone by mispronouncing a word. The important thing is to highlight what the word means, and in that we must make it very clear that the debt belongs to Mauricio Macri,” Mendoza said.

“When Alberto Fernández took over, the debt was already there, and now we have the responsibility, together, to see how our country does not go into default,” he added to the Tucuman press.

The truth is that the expression used is not new in the ruling coalition. The popular phrase, which refers to the legend of the Greek historian Timaeus of Tauromenius and seeks to mean about imminent danger, had been pronounced on January 28, when President Alberto Fernández announced from Quinta de Olivos the beginning of an agreement to refinance the credit taken by the Mauricio Macri administration for USD 44 million. “We had a rope around our neck, a sword from Damocles, and now we have a path we can walk. Without agreement, we didn't have a future horizon,” he said then.

According to its official information, Mendoza is a lawyer received at the San Pablo T University, in Tucumán and a public hammer, with a degree awarded by the National University of Formosa, and held several positions as provincial legislator between 2015 and 2021. Last year he resigned his seat to take office in the Senate.

KEEP READING: