Rafael Guerra, Guerrita, was an exceptional bullfighter who ended up being part of the court of Alfonso XIII and who they claim inspired José Ortega y Gasset himself with his sentences. The legend establishes that on one occasion he heard him say: “Each one is each one” and hence the philosopher’s phrase: “I am myself and my circumstance.” Alfonso Rueda, the PP candidate for the presidency of the Xunta, has been so confused by the Genoa leadership in this campaign that he has lost his way and, if he does not listen to himself, he may lose the elections. So he should listen to Guerrita, and go about his business, because everyone is everyone.
The man started the campaign with a phrase that is going to be eaten with potatoes: “My great rival at the polls is not the BNG, nor the PSG, but it is Pedro Sánchez, it is very clear to me.” He was wrong: his main rival is Ana Pontón, leader of the Galician nationalists, of whom almost half of PP voters approve, according to polls. Her speech is transversal and she speaks at rallies about education, health or social services in Galicia. About what she would do and what she has not done in recent years. The PP has tried to put fear into the voters’ bodies by announcing that the Galician nationalists want to throw out the National Police and the Civil Guard, that they propose a school only in Galician and that they aspire to a self-determination referendum. In reality, what the BNG wants, according to the first point of its program, is a new political framework with more and better self-government, which does not seem like the end of the world.
Heading into the final stretch of the campaign, Rueda is realizing that they made a mistake by Spanishizing the elections. And even more so when they have tried to catalanize them with proclamations against the amnesty, which is of little interest to Galicians. This weekend, in the middle of the mess created by Feijóo’s comment about the pardon with conditions for Puigdemont, Rueda still insisted that his rivals want to make Galicia another branch of the independence franchises.
The candidate should have told the PP leadership, paraphrasing what Guerrita also said: “Madrid is where it needs to be, that is what is very far away.”
