“Faith is not believing in what we see; It consists of believing in something that we will never see.” The phrase of Unamuno, without a doubt the Spanish writer who lived the experience of human mortality with the greatest doses of torment, condenses in a very exact way the atmosphere with which the imminent European elections have settled in the PSOE headquarters and the PP in Andalusia, where the carnival pilgrimages of Pentecost are still celebrated, in a landscape of sunsets between marshes and burning sands, that sacred time that closes the last liturgical hour of Easter and announces the imminent arrival of the Holy Spirit.
The two major political parties claim to have blind confidence in their victory. Especially the right, which formulates the 5-J as a plebiscite and a sort of (unofficial) second round of the general elections from almost a year ago. There is, however, no empirical evidence or real support to think that so much (rhetorical) optimism is true. Conviction, in fact, is scarce. The eve feeling that both the leaders of the PP and the PSOE share, although for very different reasons, is that these elections are not going to have the outcome they long for.
For the president of the Board, the European elections are the fourth elections of a triumphant cycle that began with the absolute majority of the regional elections of 2022 – which allowed him to revalidate the throne of San Telmo without depending on Vox -, continued with the municipal elections of 2023 –with a balance that includes all the city councils of the eight capitals and the presidency of six councils– until reaching the early general elections in June, where the PP was also the political force with the most votes in the South, although below its own expectations. .
The continental elections are the first real test that Moreno Bonilla, most reverend of Genoa, faces after this victorious chariot race. Although the Quirinale has been supporting for months, thanks to institutional surveys, the thesis that the president of the Board does not suffer any erosion after a long five years in power, a possible discreet result in the European elections can be interpreted, if the dice do not grant a sufficiently resounding and comfortable victory, as a sign of the exhaustion of his aura. The end of the enchantment of him.
There are signs and indications of this, but there is still a lack of indictment proof. The historical statistics, to begin with, do not favor the popular ones, who have never won a European election in Andalusia, given that abstention tends to grow significantly in relation to other calls. The socialists, accustomed to being the most voted list, trust that this trend will continue. If it happens, although their victory is very poor and sterile, it would at least serve to ward off part of the existential crisis in which they have been trapped since 2018.
To achieve this, they need to mobilize progressive voters, whom they insist must go to the polls to block the rise of the far right in Europe. Moreno Bonilla, aware that the socialists may be on top – or not sink – in Andalusia, plans to nip this uncomfortable political extrapolation in the bud – so far only virtual – with a remodeling of the regional executive whose scope is still unknown.
A change of government in San Telmo, even if slight, would completely cover up the chorus of hostile messages from the PSOE. For the Andalusian socialists, in any case, the 5J will at best be a mere temporary relief. The PSOE has underlying problems in Andalusia that transcend the next election. They come from far back and seem to have no remedy. Since Juan Espadas took charge of the organization they have only gotten worse.
The general secretary of the Andalusian socialists has not won any of the electoral calls that have been chained since he took office in the distant summer of 2021. Three disputes, three defeats. If there were a fourth in June, the PSOE spokesperson in the Senate would have definitively exhausted his time in Andalusia, regardless of the fact that his replacement at the head of the party would not be completed until after the Federal Congress.
Espadas is the last link in a glorious dynasty – the leaders and great patriarchs of southern socialism – already installed in the hour of its twilight. The role that the Andalusian PSOE has historically played in Ferraz, to whose orders the regional leadership is prostrate, has passed to the PSC, which before the Catalan elections was already acting as primus inter pares.
If Illa reaches the presidency of the Generalitat, this influence will grow exponentially to the detriment of the Andalusian socialists, who will have definitively become the tail of the mouse – the old lion of Andalusian socialism has passed into history – at a political moment in which it What is being resolved is the de facto configuration of a new map of power in Spain, with an asymmetrical tendency, without the need to change the Constitution. A battle in which Andalusia – until now – continues to play a disturbing and secondary political role.
