他赌上政治前途提前举行大选，似乎正在奏效，西班牙首相希望能借助因房租上涨而抗议的西班牙青年力量，让他的政党重掌大权。
His gamble to call a snap election appeared to be paying off, and the Spanish prime minister was hoping his party would be carried back to power on the backs of Spain’s youth who have been protesting over increasing rents.
这是他的标志性手笔：突然宣布大选，意在让对手措手不及，并重塑自己的权威。
It was a trademark manoeuvre: a surprise election in the hopes of wrong-footing opponents and reinstating his authority.
周一，其左翼盟友、巴西前总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦在巴西大选中上演惊天逆转获胜，这让桑切斯团队士气大振。“巴西发生的事将在西班牙重演，”桑切斯宣称。
His team took fresh heart from the extraordinary comeback victory by Left-wing ally Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil on Monday. “What has happened in Brazil will happen in Spain,” Mr Sánchez declared.
另一方面，他的主要对手、保守党人民党（PP）领袖阿尔韦托·努涅斯·费霍并非天生的竞选高手；他的核心承诺之一是做一位低调的领导人，“让民众安心过日子”。
Alberto Núñez Feijóo, his main rival and the leader of the conservative People’s Party (PP), on the other hand, is not a natural campaigner; one of his key promises is to be a discreet leader and “let people get on with their lives”.
桑切斯拉开连任竞选序幕的方式是公开吻别妻子——贝戈尼亚·戈麦斯，后者明年将面临腐败审判——并将“爱的力量”对垒他声称的人民党与极右翼呼声党（Vox）联合政府将对西班牙福利体系挥舞的“电锯”。
Mr Sánchez opened his re-election bid by publicly kissing his wife – Begoña Gómez, who faces a corruption trial next year – and pitching “the power of love” against the “chainsaw” he claimed a coalition government of the PP and the far-Right Vox would take to Spain’s welfare system.
费霍中了桑切斯的圈套，承认如果当选，他将要求西班牙人做出“牺牲”。
Opening his re-election campaign, Pedro Sánchez publicly kissed Begoña Gómez, who will face a corruption trial next year Mr Feijóo played into Mr Sánchez’s hands by admitting that if he were elected, he would ask Spaniards to make “sacrifices”.
此时，民调虽仍显示人民党与呼声党联盟拥有健康的多数优势，但开始显示劣势正在缩小。
At this point, the polls, while still showing a healthy majority for a PP-Vox alliance, began to show a narrower deficit.
周三，一列高速列车在托莱多以南约40英里、乌尔达村附近撞上一列停靠的列车，造成至少69人死亡。
On Wednesday, a high-speed train crashed into a stationary train some 40 miles south of Toledo near the village of Urda, killing at least 69 people.
托莱多相撞事故造成至少69人死亡“令人无法接受”是神色沮丧的桑切斯反复用来形容这起事故的词汇；这是西班牙高速铁路网一年内发生的第二起灾难，此前阿达穆兹撞车事故（位于科尔多瓦附近）已造成46人死亡、200多人受伤。
At least 69 were killed in the Toledo collision“Unacceptable” is the word a seemingly deflated Mr Sánchez has repeatedly used to describe the second disaster in a year on Spain’s high-speed rail network; a collision in Adamuz, near Córdoba, killed 46 people and injured more than 200 others.
乌尔达案或许更多是桑切斯八年执政的挽歌，而非导致其垮台的决定性原因，后者是对夏季危机的灾难性应对——当时超过7万名移民强行闯入休达，这个位于北非的西班牙小飞地。
But Urda may be more of an epitaph for Mr Sánchez’s eight-year rule than the definitive cause of its demise, which was the disastrous handling of the summer crisis in which more than 70,000 migrants forced their way into Ceuta, the small Spanish exclave in North Africa.
移民潮始于7月30日，正值桑切斯准备休假之际，他当时自觉在野火扑灭工作从人民党执政的地方政府手中接管后重获主动权，并将火灾归咎于右翼气候变化否认论者。桑切斯或许觉得好运已离他而去。反对派极力宣扬，政府无能加上腐败，才是西班牙问题的根源。人民党和呼声党指责桑切斯在休达危机中负有共谋责任。
The migrant influx started on July 30, just when Mr Sánchez was preparing to take his summer break with a sense of having regained momentum after his government took over the extinction of wildfires from PP-run regional authorities, while blaming Right-wing climate change deniers for the blazes. Mr Sánchez may feel his luck has deserted him. The opposition is only too eager to trumpet that government incompetence, mixed with corruption, lies at the root of Spain’s problems. The PP and Vox have accused Mr Sánchez of being complicit in the Ceuta crisis.
呼声党在毫无证据的情况下声称，摩洛哥正利用2022年曝光的“飞马”间谍软件入侵总理及多名部长手机获取的敏感信息，对桑切斯实施“勒索”。
Vox claimed without evidence that Morocco is “blackmailing” Mr Sánchez with sensitive information gained from hacking the phone of the prime minister and several other ministers with Pegasus software, revealed in 2022.
反对派还主张，自何塞·路易斯·阿瓦洛斯出任桑切斯政府的基础设施部长以来，西班牙铁路网已显现出多处衰败迹象。他今年早些时候因腐败罪被判处24年监禁。
The opposition also argues that Spain’s railway network has shown multiple signs of decay since José Luis Ábalos, Mr Sánchez’s infrastructure minister, was appointed. He was later sentenced to 24 years in jail for corruption earlier this year.
费霍奥为人沉稳缺乏想象力，但他主打的“称职管理者”形象——在加利西亚自治区主席任上度过了基本无丑闻的13年——显得愈发合时宜。桑切斯对权力的掌控可能已走向尾声。一切仍有待时间检验。
Mr Feijóo is stolid and unimaginative, but his pitch of being a competent manager after a largely scandal-free 13-year period as president of Galicia seems increasingly opportune. Mr Sánchez’s grip on power may be running its course. Only time will tell.