The Andalusian vice president is running for election with the aim of Citizens maintaining vital signs until the next appointment, the municipal ones next year, and not succumbing to the bear hug of the PP, with whom Andalusia has governed in coalition in recent years three and a half years. The fire in the Sierra Bermeja has disrupted his agenda and he attends La Vanguardia by phone on an AVE from Granada to Madrid.
You are vice president of the coalition government of Juanma Moreno, what has happened so that the PP absorbs practically all those who voted for Ciudadanos in 2018?
The only poll that works for me is the one from June 19. They are states of opinion, but really there is no reliable data there.
But the polls give you three seats at most, do you still trust to surprise?
Sure. In 2015 they gave me zero and I got nine. And in 2018 they gave me eleven and I got 21.
Wouldn't it have been better to go in coalition with the PP?
We have different projects. The proof is that the PP is willing to reach agreements in autonomous communities and even in the Spanish government with Vox. And I do not. Our formula has worked in Andalusia. We are an example of a coalition, with loyalty, commitment and compliance with agreements.
Do you recognize any error before the predictable bad result?
No. There is no reasonable or logical explanation. The areas that Ciudadanos has directed have worked very well. Yes, it is true that we have dedicated ourselves more to managing and the PP, more to doing politics. Now, in the campaign, it is time to explain to the Andalusians what we are doing and I hope that this is reflected on 19-J. Some are going to be long these ten days.
Do you plan to resign if you do not get a seat?
Nerd. What I have said is that in politics you have to have dignity to enter and to leave. If we are able to reissue the government, no doubt no one is going to fail to recognize our work well done. And if you don't get the seat, life goes on...
In that case, has Moreno offered you any public office?
What he has said is that he wants me to remain his vice president regardless of the result, but if we are not in Parliament with our own group and Ciudadanos does not reach an agreement with the PP, I cannot be.
The PP even offered him to go as an independent on the lists...
Well, but that's never been on my agenda.
How is the electoral program of Ciudadanos different from the one presented by the PP?
We defend a liberal, transversal project. We make politics for everyone. But there are red lines that I am not willing to cross at any time. I am not willing to take any step back in the rights acquired in 40 years of democracy in Andalusia.
Are you referring to the extreme right?
I am not going to reach any agreement with Vox. I only consider the possibility of governing with the PP to continue with the change. The PP came to govern thanks to us with the worst result in its history. We could go on. With other political forces this is going to be a very big mess and we are going to have a lot of anger. And that does not interest Andalusia, which is the economic locomotive of Spain. I'm not saying it, the data says it: GDP growth, job creation, companies, freelancers...
Do you regret not having confronted Vox more?
I have not confronted anyone. I have tried to reach agreements with everyone. But I don't know what Vox wants. I have not heard any proposals. It is a lack of respect to use Andalusia as a springboard and as a bargaining chip to obtain an armchair in Moncloa. We are at the antipodes.
What is the reason for the turn to the right, with a notable weight of the extreme right, in Andalusia?
Vox is not going to govern Andalusia. No matter what the polls say. For the rest, the shift has been produced by the liberal policies of public-private collaboration, of simplifying the administration, of fiscal reductions. The vote that has decided a change in Andalusia is that of Ciudadanos. And now it is decisive to continue it.
