The socialist candidate for the presidency of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Espadas, undertakes an electoral campaign –although, since the ex-mayor of Seville was elected leader of the Andalusian PSOE, he has accumulated almost a year of tireless pre-campaign– in which he will be very supported by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for a display of socialist ministers, especially from Andalusians such as María Jesús Montero or Luis Planas, and for the leadership of Ferraz, headed by Adriana Lastra, Santos Cerdán, always behind the scenes, or the man from Jaén Philip Sicily.
But the socialist campaign of 19-J, with all the polls against it and that for the first time is being faced from the opposition and far from the San Telmo palace, is not expected to have the leading role, due to different circumstances, of the great referents history of the Andalusian PSOE. Neither Felipe González or Alfonso Guerra, nor Manuel Chaves or José Antonio Griñán. Nor with the last socialist president of Andalusia, Susana Díaz, who despite winning the last regional elections, in December 2018, lost the Board after 37 years of consecutive PSOE governments.
“We are not the same as always”, allege in the team of Juan Espadas (Seville, 1966). And it is not, they say, that there is any animosity between the candidate and these historical leaders. Before, on the contrary. But in the case of González and Guerra, it is argued that "in life, each one is in their vital moment". And they remember that Felipe González (Seville, 1942), is already 80 years old.
Despite the fact that the former Prime Minister maintains an intense agenda –next Monday he will participate in a new award ceremony in memory of Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba–, it is very likely that starring in PSOE electoral rallies is no longer among his vital priorities. Pedro Sánchez, however, still managed to get González to intervene in the last federal congress of the PSOE, held in Valencia last October, as a key piece in staging a socialist reunification after the organic upheavals of the recent past.
Alfonso Guerra (Seville, 1940) is 82 years old. The former Vice President of the Government, precisely, extended an invitation to Swords for the act that he starred in last Sunday on the occasion of his admission to the Seville Academy of Good Letters, with a speech, of course, about the figure of Machado.
Manuel Chaves (Ceuta, 1945) and José Antonio Griñán (Madrid, 1946), are 76 and 75 years old, respectively. Between them they add 23 years of presidency of Andalusia. But the scandal of the false EREs ended up condemning them, ending their long political careers, with great affectation also personally, and they even went ahead to withdraw from the PSOE militancy in 2016.
In the Swords team, however, they assure that they neither resign nor lack "pride for the legacy" left by all these leaders of the old socialist guard in their own land. “At the end of the day, everything that has been done in Andalusia has been done by us”, they highlight. Swords, in fact, recently held a tribute in Antequera to the veterans of the first regional elections, in an act that included Rafael Escuredo (Estepa, 1944), who presided over the Board between 1982 and 1984. Another veteran who had already retired from the first line of politics, Francisco Toscano (Seville, 1949), in turn attended the public rally that Sánchez and Espadas staged last Sunday along with eight ministers in Dos Hermanas, a town of which he was mayor for almost 40 years.
Swords, therefore, assures that he does not renounce the past –with its lights although also assuming its shadows–, but defends “a PSOE of 2022”. “The party has been renewed, with new teams and highly trained people, with many mayors, a new vision of Andalusia, and a renewed discourse. We cannot live from the inertia of the past”, they settle.
