Despite the unexpected joy that the investiture of Jaume Collboni as mayor of Barcelona brought him, the PSOE yesterday certified the “black Saturday for Spanish democracy” that he predicted, after the alliance between the PP and the extreme right of Vox was consummated, according to their figures, up to 187 municipalities throughout Spain, to impose their “ultra-conservative” policies on more than 8.2 million citizens. From Valencia to Seville, from Zaragoza to Palma, or from Alicante to Cáceres, among many other capitals, the right-wing majorities dyed the map of municipal Spain blue.
But, with everything, what the Socialists warn as even more lacerating, as highlighted by the municipal political secretary of Ferraz, Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, is that the PSOE won the local elections on May 28 in up to 52 of those 187 municipalities where the PP will now govern thanks to the support of Vox.
The government spokesperson and Minister for Territorial Policy, the socialist Isabel Rodríguez – who yesterday attended the investiture of former minister Carolina Darias as mayor of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – denounced the “shame pacts” between the PP and Vox in numerous town halls throughout Spain.
That fifty towns where the PSOE was the list with the most votes, but where the formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo will govern with that of Santiago Abascal, has its peak in some large cities such as Valladolid (with 295,639 inhabitants), Elx (235,580), Alcalá de Henares (196,888) and Burgos (173,483). But also in many other medium-sized municipalities, with more than 30,000 inhabitants, such as Mijas, Guadalajara, Torrent, Toledo, Talavera de la Reina, Molina de Segura, Arrefice, Calvià, Tomelloso, Cieza, Níjar or Xirivella.
And even in some tiny municipalities such as Chercos, in Almería, with 301 inhabitants, or Villademor de la Vega, in León, with just 290 souls.
Also, the Socialists highlight, in Maracena, the Granada town that achieved infamous fame in the 28-M campaign for the open investigation, and later archived, against the former mayor and then organizational secretary of the Andalusian PSOE, Noel López, for the kidnapping Councilwoman Vanessa Romero. Julio Pérez, from the PP, took possession of this mayor’s office yesterday after his government agreement, among other formations, with Vox.
A territory where the socialist drama is expressed in all its intensity is Andalusia, since this federation was always the backbone of the PSOE and its main focus of territorial power.
Scourged by the fraudulent ERE scandal, the first major moral and electoral blow that the PSOE received in Andalusia was that of the regional elections of December 2018, which meant losing the government of the Junta for the first time in democracy. Four years later, in June 2022, the coup de grace arrived, when the popular Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla already had an absolute majority and the Socialists signed their worst record. And the final straw came in the municipal elections of 28-M, when the PSOE also lost the jewel in the crown of its municipal power, Seville. And not only that: the PP returns to govern the eight Andalusian capitals. All: Seville, Huelva, Granada and Jaén, lost by the Socialists, as well as Málaga, Córdoba, Cádiz and Almería.
The Sevillian town of Dos Hermanas, with 133,000 inhabitants, is today the main Andalusian municipality in the hands of the PSOE. After almost forty years in office and ten consecutive absolute majorities, the veteran Francisco Toscano ceded last year the baton of mayoralty to Francisco Rodríguez, who on 28-M maintained the absolute majority of the PSOE and even increased his votes.
And precisely in Dos Hermanas, Pedro Sánchez will start his campaign for 23-J this Sunday, together with the Minister and Deputy Secretary General of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero. Ferraz thus seeks to resort to the “epic” that helped build the political profile of the socialist leader, to try to take flight before the final appointment with the polls. It was in Dos Hermanas that Sánchez announced, in January 2017, his candidacy for the PSOE primaries after being ousted as general secretary in the federal committee on October 1, 2016. “It all started there,” recall his faithful, since Sánchez managed to win that internal fight against Susana Díaz and recover the leadership of the PSOE, to later reach Moncloa after winning the motion of no confidence that overthrew Mariano Rajoy in 2018.
Some voices of the PSOE hold Pedro Sánchez responsible for the enormous loss of municipal power now suffered. “They have paid just for sinners,” lamented the Castilian-La Mancha Emiliano García-Page, just the only socialist regional president who remains with an absolute majority after 28-M. And Sánchez himself accepted the defeat in the first person, after noticing the “so undeserved and so unfair punishment” suffered by many socialist mayors.
Now, in the leadership of the PSOE, they trust that the government alliances between the PP and Vox in so many town halls, and for the moment also in the Valencian Community, will cause a “reaction” from the progressive electorate that the next 23-J will stop this “wave ultra-conservative that wants to take over the institutions and push Spain back”.
