The great theater of the investiture has three hypothetical outcomes. They are all dramatic. The first, not yet fully averted, is the repetition of the elections if Feijóo or Sánchez do not obtain a sufficient parliamentary majority to become president. The second, if the PSOE candidate is elected, goes through an internal crisis in Genoa. And the third, if there were a surprise at the last minute – the hare in the top hat, in this case, could speak in Basque – implies turning the improbable into feasible. It will also mean paying a price.
In any of these variants, the same conclusion is reached: neither the PSOE nor the PP, which are the two great parties of the second Spanish (monarchical) restoration, equivalent to the old consortiums of conservative and liberal interests of the Alfonsine monarchy, can achieve power without the collaboration, by action or omission, of the peripheral political elites.
The Genoese desperately try to seduce the heirs of Sabino Arana. The Canarian regionalists put their support up for auction. And the independentistas, whatever language they speak, have become fixed in any equation thanks to the electoral law of the Transition. In this table, in none of all the possible formulations, Andalusia appears.
Historical electoral barn of the PSOE, and for five years a (relative) symbol of the apparently more liberal wing (ma non troppo) of the PP, in the Quirinale de San Telmo there has not yet been any serious movement –in an institutional key– comparable to the meeting that five former presidents of the Generalitat, including the fugitive Carles Puigdemont, celebrated in the town of Codalet this week under the pretext of paying tribute to Pau Casals.
The meeting at the abbey of Sant Miquel de Cuixà has only one interpretation: to send the message that the person who is going to decide the identity of the President of the Government is not just Junts, but the top leaders of the Catalan institutions. Past and present. In Andalusia, a similar photo is unthinkable. And it shows the secondary position, almost irrelevant, that the great autonomy of the South plays in the new political map that is being configured.
Neither Moreno Bonilla, who is the one who could obtain the greatest personal profit with a similar snapshot, nor of course the socialists, whose regional secretary, Juan Espadas, acts as a mere ambassador for Ferraz rather than as the leader of the largest socialist federation in the world. country, have shown willingness to participate in a similar conclave. It’s not on their schedules.
The causes are divergent, as are the particular interests of PSOE and PP, but they lead to the same place: there is no consensus in Andalusia in the face of an uncertain legislature that can alter, by way of facts, the fragile balances of Spain autonomous.
The president of the Junta has shown in public – he verbalized it in parliamentary headquarters – his discomfort (organic and institutional) with an agreement between PSOE, Sumar and the independence movement, alleging that it would harm Andalusia. At the moment, he has not gone beyond rhetorical disapproval.
The Andalusian socialists, applying the maxim of due obedience, keep a thunderous silence in the face of the possible repercussions that the articulation of the parliamentary majority that may invest Sánchez will have in Andalusia. It is a position that differs completely from what has been the party’s political discourse since the beginning of self-government.
Whoever is silent –points to the proverb– grants. In this case, there is no doubt: San Vicente street, headquarters of the Andalusian PSOE, is willing to sacrifice its history to the interests of Ferraz. It is not that this is anything new – the turnaround began after Susana Díaz lost the primaries with Sánchez and surrendered, which allowed her to survive two more years entrenched at the top of the organization – but, in the political context derived from 23J , supposes a jump of scale.
The problem of the Andalusian PSOE is threefold. It lacks political autonomy after the internal victory of sanchismo. He cannot resort to his own political record to position himself. And not even in the most critical situation that could be imagined is it possible to think that they would join a similar initiative or with the five former socialist presidents of the Board. Two of them –Chaves and Griñán– are convicted of the ERE scandal and the latter’s successor, Susana Díaz, an ostracized senator, has no internal support.
Moreno Bonilla, who is the only president of the PP who has managed to govern the Junta. He doesn’t have anyone either, except for Alejandro Rojas Marcos, the founder of the Andalusian Party, with whom he put together an institutional front before a multi-national agreement.
His only option would be to convince, without much chance of success, the first two Andalusian presidents –Rafael Escuredo and Rodríguez de la Borbolla– so that, from the socialist side, they would lend themselves to endorse their opposition –at the moment symbolic– before the possibility of an autonomic mutation. The first, although decorated by Moreno Bonilla, maintains socialist discipline. The second, who usually goes it alone, is critical of Sánchez, like many other historical references to the PSOE, but he is a supporter of the federal tradition of the PSOE.
Moreno Bonilla has two alternatives if Sánchez gives in to the independence movement. Either go to war alone, if the PSOE’s concessions to the independence movement alter the territorial model and harm the interests of Andalusia, or give up on waging a battle. Both junctures will erode his image. Standing still, in your case, is no longer an option.
The new legislature, as it is proposed, leads Andalusia to a political crossroads equivalent to the one that in 1977, when the historic demonstrations of the 4D in favor of southern self-government were held, forced a change in the plans of the UCD and, In the long run, they ended up changing the state model. The PSOE then swept away the Andalusians, becoming, de facto, the only party in the South for 38 years. The right has taken that same time to reach San Telmo. What happens now is not yet written
