The situation was reminiscent, with the logical variations of space and time, of a scene taken from a Far West movie. Disguised, but obvious discomfort. Stage tension. Bad faces. Forced half smiles. Boos from one another; to a large extent, instigated by the leadership of the respective parties. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, always surrounded by the socialist militias, avoided any type of (sincere) gestural closeness with the President of the Board, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, and the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz (PP), both in turn protected by their respective phalanxes, which looked like Roman legions.
There wasn't even an official group photo. Just snapshots stolen by photographers. It was pretty clear that this was not a (friendly) family reunion. There was not much institutional cordiality either: everyone surrounded themselves with their own and ignored their adversaries. A mutual contempt reigned in the atmosphere, tempered only by the (mute) rigidity of the protocol. Liberty Valance, the character from John Ford's western, was missed, pronouncing some of his phrases. For example: “I will teach you the law, the law of the West.”
The inauguration –this Monday– of the works on Metro line 3 in the capital of Andalusia was not, strictly speaking, an inauguration. There was no first stone, nor does it (yet) imply the beginning of any work. It was just mere scenery for politicians on both sides to try to claim the merits of an infrastructure that arrives more than two decades late and discredit the opponent. The best example of the marked degree of deterioration in relations between the Palacio de San Telmo and the Moncloa, whose contacts are uncomfortable and bad-tempered.
Moreno Bonilla and Sánchez have not met officially – casual coincidences aside – since July 2022. In reality, they have only held two meetings. The previous Saturday, in the final of the Copa del Rey, Quirinale and Moncloa argued over who would sit at the right hand of Felipe VI: Sánchez delegated María Jesús Montero –vice president– and San Telmo was displeased that the president of the Junta was not the second authority in the box.
That things have never gone very well between the central Executive and the government of the great autonomy of the South is not a secret - the only exception to the rule has been the Doñana affair, redirected at the last minute after a stormy start -, but they have never had been staged with as much virulence as this week. Moreno Bonilla, whom Sanchez has ignored since he took office, does not receive a response to his requests as president of Andalusia. Not even when he demands a summit with other regional officials to talk about money.
The socialist ministers, without covering up, have decided for months to ignore the Board and the City Council – both in the hands of the PP – in their visits to Seville, limiting their work meetings to appointments with the president – socialist – of the Provincial Council. The situation, in addition to being astonishing, has something of a tragicomedy: Moreno Bonilla, given the lack of response from the Moncloa, is forced to demand the improvement of regional financing when by protocol it is his turn to speak. That is the only moment in which Sánchez listens to him (forcibly).
The socialist president, without giving his place to the Board, boasts of the high degree of state investment in Seville, comparing the current moment with the years of Expo 92. An exaggeration as majestic as it is ridiculous. And a response, not at all peaceful, to the discomfort of the leaders of the Andalusian PP, powerless in the face of the express contempt of the President of the Government, who was booed this Monday in this neighborhood of Seville, with historical socialist affiliation, and also in the municipality of Dos Sisters, other PSOE fiefdoms and the place where the President of the Government decided to run in the primaries after Ferraz's 'coup d'état'.
That Sanchez's ascendancy after the amnesty is not the same even in places like Pino Montano is objective evidence. In January 2023, when he visited the same area during the municipal election campaign, the mayor of Seville was still Antonio Muñoz (PSOE), who would lose the mayor's office – the most important municipal square for the socialists – in May. It does not seem likely that Muñoz will repeat as a candidate again – as is his wish – because the next candidacy for mayor, which will be decided in 2024, although there are still more than three years left for other local elections, already has alternative candidates, including deputies socialists through Seville in search of refuge in case of a sudden fall of the current Government.
It was then, just over a year ago, when the sociological hegemony of the PSOE in the North of Seville, one of its Vietcong territories, began to wane. In those local elections the socialists obtained 15,795 votes. Being a not inconsiderable figure – 47% of the electorate of the entire district, which includes Polígono Norte, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Spain – they lost 1,700 votes. The PP doubled its support, going from 3,002 to 7,790 votes.
The momentum of the early elections in June caused the socialists to recover votes – 3,000 more votes, thanks to the increase in participation – but without improving their electoral share, which fell one point. Vox also doubled its voters in the North of Seville. Pino Montano, where in a few weeks the earthworks of the new Metro line will begin, whose law dates back to Franco's times, and which will be financed in equal parts, but thanks to the impulse of the Junta more than by the conviction state, is still socialist.
The enthusiasm that Sánchez aroused, apart from the local PSOE leaders, has fallen in intensity among his own historical voters. Not so much for the benefit of Moreno Bonilla, whose parliamentary majority in 2022 was due to the transfer of up to 15% of socialist votes, but rather for himself. If the Andalusian PSOE sought with Pedro Sánchez's visit to Seville to increase the degree of popular support in its own field, the balance is not good.
The President of the Government has lost the aura of his beginnings, when he won the primaries against the old guard of the PSOE. To deny it is to cheat the solitary. Moncloa's propaganda is sterile: state investment in the capital of Andalusia is ridiculous compared to Madrid and Barcelona. Moncloa did not let the journalists ask anything of the President of the Government, who in Dos Hermanas, his Vatican, was whistled at by a group of bricklayers. Memento mori.
