Within the generous repertoire of phrases from Sophocles, one of the great authors of ancient Greek tragedy, one stands out – “a sign of great madness is to pursue the impossible” – which at the same time fits with the direction taken by the investiture of the future president. of the Government and the reading that occurs in Andalusia, the most populated autonomy in Spain, on the hypothesis of an agreement (at any price) between the PSOE, Sumar and the independentistas. Two different things that are intertwined at their center, just like a bundle of firewood.
The socialists negotiate to obtain Puigdemont's votes. Yolanda Díaz just appeared days ago in Brussels in search of a photo that she voluntarily ignores, or despises, the fugitive status of the former president of the Generalitat. In the South, given that the Feijóo impasse will not reach any shore, the PP begins to accept the evidence – the Galician candidate will not be inaugurated – and increases the tone of its criticism in the face of the negative impact that an alliance between socialists, and sovereignty would have for territorial balance.
The president of the Board began by fleeing from the vehemence, while Génova rehearsed an impossible dialogue with Junts. Progressively, she has been hardening his position in order to lead the opposition front that, in addition to the parliamentary one, will have Sánchez's executive, if it is ever born, from the territorial level. Genoa controls, alone or in company with Vox, all the autonomies except Asturias, Navarra, Castilla-La Mancha, Euskadi and Catalonia.
Andalusia wants to become the spear of this army whose mission is to contain Moncloa's drift in favor of the independence movement, which is forced by the electoral defeat of 23J, which can only become a victory through the dispatch agreements. Moreno Bonilla therefore has a certain path – the future is a monopoly on time – as second leader of the opposition, provided that the rest of the regional presidents of the PP accept his promotion. He remains to be seen.
In its favor it has the demographic weight of Andalusia and that it does not need Vox to govern. What plays against him is that he still does not know exactly how he should deal with the situation – beyond the verbal criticism and offensives through the judicial flank – and that, as has happened in politics since this world began, any decision implies a risk, and vice versa.
Andalusia has serious reasons to feel restless. Despite being a historical nationality, with the same legal status as Galicia, Euskadi or Catalonia, Moncloa has not taken into account the Andalusian perspective when starting to build its new parliamentary majority. Southern nationalists, although they exist, are a tiny minority without representation in Congress. They do not have their own deputies to offer in the investiture auction.
This lack, in political terms – the Andalusian deputies respond to the disciplines of Ferraz, Génova, Bambú and San Raimundo; all streets of Madrid – disturbs the leadership of Moreno Bonilla, who must align with the Genoa guidelines, even if they are changing, without appearing excessively lukewarm in defending the territorial equality that Andalusia demands.
It is a complicated scenario for a politician who, although he has been in the Quirinale of San Telmo for five years, will have to fight this battle – staying still is not conceivable – as alone as Feijóo is. His only support in the regional political arc is Andalusianism, organically defunct, without deputies and, to a large extent, already instrumentalized by the PP since 2018.
The Andalusian socialists and the Sumar smallholding in Andalusia – five deputies out of a total of one hundred and nine seats –, maintaining the obedience due to their federal leaders, are obliged to take on other people's decisions that may mean unequal treatment for Andalusia.
It is nothing that has not happened in the last five years, although the problem now has a very different degree of radiation for the PSOE and the accidents. The latter have long since surrendered the Andalusian fort: internally divided, their political brands have de facto renounced, although they do not recognize it in public, any territorial discourse proposed from the South that questions their surrender to Basque and Catalan nationalism.
For the socialists, on the other hand, the rapprochement between the leadership of Ferraz and Puigdemont represents an absolute self-amendment to 38 years of government, during which they have defended the opposite of what they do now: giving up exercising any kind of influence through the decision-making bodies of the PSOE in the open debate on plurinationality, which is foreign to the Constitution, which only recognizes one nation (nationalities are different things).
The influence of the southern socialist federation on Ferraz is none. It is Moncloa who gives the orders to San Vicente Street, party headquarters in Seville. The Andalusian PSOE limits itself to obeying, sacrificing its tradition, burning its history and risking that the PP, once Moreno Bonilla figures out how it should fight this battle, will leave them out of the game forever.
To ward off this fear, María Jesús Montero, who leads the party through the intermediary of Juan Espadas, gathered this week the elected parliamentarians and senators of the PSOE with the aim of remembering (especially themselves, given the sudden amnesia caused by sanchismo) that the right, forty years ago, was not at all prone to self-government.
More than a conclave of affirmation, it seemed like an act of desperation. They talked about the past so as not to have to explain (too much) about the present. The proof is that they summoned Susana Díaz, senator by regional designation, so that she would not have an excuse to distance herself from the diktat imposed by Ferraz. The last president of the Board did not even try: her generous institutional salary now depends on defending in public everything that she repudiated on her day.
Politics – it is known – forces us to swallow a toad every day without making a face. The contradiction between the particular interest of its deputies and the old principles of the Andalusian socialists, who have passed away, forces us not only to do it, but to enjoy it.
This banquet full of amphibians contains, however, a tragic irony, the favorite genre of Sophocles: it forces the PSOE of the South to renounce its identity without being able to replace it with any alternative other than submission. Such contortion can lead to chronic injury.
