The Andalusian campaign starts, which everyone pays attention to except those who have to vote

Tonight the campaign for the election of the future government of the Junta de Andalucía begins. Its result closes the electoral cycle started in December and will cast a long shadow over the remainder of the legislature. 

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The truth is that, when one arrives in Andalusia, it is immediately noticeable that the citizens barely pay attention to this campaign. For them, it hasn’t even started while for the political leaders from today, it enters the final stretch. The demobilization on the streets is considerable.

The PP candidate has chosen the Murillo gardens in Seville for the first poster pasting. The Andalusian capital and its province is one of those where Juanma Moreno’s candidacy, originally from Malaga, must fight harder to revalidate the absolute majority.

In all his public acts Moreno insists that, despite the polls favoring him, victory should not be taken for granted, much less a result that ensures the “stability majority,” as his team calls the longed-for absolute majority.

This merely semantic peculiarity describes to what extent the Popular Party must carefully measure the intensity of its campaign. It cannot shake the board too much so as not to awaken the adversaries.

Moreno will focus this campaign on Andalusia with few incursions into the turbulent Spanish agenda. As an example: today the PP candidate could well have used the electoral ammunition that the commissioner Aldama planted in his statement before the Supreme Court against his main adversary, Maria Jesús Montero. He has not done so.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the rest of the PP leaders from other communities will hardly take the stage at their rallies. On Sunday the ninth, the PP president will hold the central campaign event alongside Moreno, and it remains to be seen if he will participate in the closing on the 15th. Little more, for now.

Although no one starts a battle admitting it is lost, the truth is that few believe in a comeback for the socialist party in Andalusia. Most polls predict for María Jesús Montero – who has turned her name into an acronym, MJM, for the campaign – a result equal to or lower than that obtained by Juan Espadas in 2022, which was already the worst in the history of Andalusian socialism.

Montero, who starts her campaign in Granada where she will be accompanied by singer Miguel Ríos, has focused her message on the deterioration of public services, particularly healthcare. Like her adversary, she avoids entering the Spanish political agenda except when sharing interventions with the Prime Minister.

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Tomorrow, Friday, May 1st, Labor Day, the candidate will participate in the demonstration that this year is held in Málaga. In the afternoon Sánchez will be in Cártama. During the pre-campaign Sánchez has already participated in two rallies. This will be the third. And there will be more.

However, the presence of other socialist leaders is in doubt. In the middle of the pre-campaign, an event was announced with the five former socialist presidents of Andalusia, from Rafael Escuredo to Susana Díaz. The event was suspended due to the death of Pepote de la Borbolla’s wife. The decision was a relief for those who considered that event a mistake. “This campaign must look to the future, not the past,” they said. Now it has been discarded.

The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, has also been ruled out. At Presidència they say they are still waiting for what is requested in Andalusia but finally from the headquarters in Seville they rule out his intervention due to scheduling problems, they say.

Vox, especially when the ultranationalist leader Santiago Abascal intervenes, manages to gather very large numbers of attendees. However, in this electoral cycle and particularly in Castilla y León, it was already shown that the mobilizing capacity of Vox’s most enthusiastic troops does not necessarily translate into votes at the polls.

In any case, Abascal – unlike candidate Manuel Gavira, who has a much less aggressive profile – is using especially provocative language. He has called Sánchez “shits” and calls the president of the Junta, Juanma “Moruno” convinced that he is islamizing Andalusian society in connivance with the central government. Moreno, so far, has avoided any of these provocations. Gavira starts the electoral campaign in Cádiz and on the first day of the campaign, the 1st, he shares it with Abascal in Jaén.

From the other end, Por Andalucía, led by Antonio Maíllo, implements a strategy diametrically opposed to that of the socialists and denounces day after day the possible collusion of Vox with the PP to govern the community in the future. Maíllo is a well-known candidate in Andalusian politics and has a good rating – better than Montero’s, which is very low – but the expectations are not very promising in the struggle with a competitor for this same electoral territory, Adelante Andalucía, which in some provinces may even surpass Maíllo’s list results.

Today the leader of Por Andalucía will also be at the May 1st demonstration in Málaga where he will meet with the vice president and labor minister, Yolanda Díaz, with whom he has had a tough struggle seeking a way out of the deadlock suffered by the already surpassed Sumar project.

It remains to be seen how the vote of this coalition evolves but for now it seems that the quarrels in building the political apparatus that could replace Sumar and the fact that Podemos has ceased to be a competitor in the campaign may have dispersed the energy with which they enter the final stretch of the campaign.

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