The PSOE is beginning to move its chips to face a difficult legislature in the Cortes and yesterday it made the first major change. Juan Espadas, general secretary of the socialists in Andalusia, will be the spokesperson in the Senate, where the PP has an absolute majority. The Andalusian leader, who was a candidate in the last regional elections against the popular Juanma Moreno – who won an unmitigated victory – replaces Eva Granados, from the PSC. The decision was announced in the federal executive and wants to change the narrative in the Upper House, where the popular party intends to stop the coalition's initiatives, starting with the amnesty law.
In this scenario at the start of the legislature, the socialists ratified, as was already known, Patxi López as spokesperson in Congress, a tough leader with extensive experience in the party in a Chamber where it will not be easy to maintain the balance of the majority of the investiture and the attacks of the PP. The appointment of Miguel Tellado as spokesperson for the PP, with a harsh verb, also outlines the dialectic of the legislature.
Espadas was mayor of Seville (2015-2022) and replaced Susana Díaz as general secretary of the Andalusian socialists in 2021. In the municipal elections the result of the Andalusian socialists was bad, but in the general elections of 23-J they scored a some recovery. The appointment of Espadas as spokesperson in the Senate will allow him and Andalusian socialism to have visibility in Spanish politics. Eva Granados, leader of the PSC, leaves the spokesperson at the beginning of the legislature in which the PP is going to take advantage of her position in the Senate to shake up all the Catalan folders. The PSOE, for its part, will seek to “de-Catalanize” the political debate to the extent possible.
The PSOE executive met yesterday in a room presided over by the new motto in which the Spanish flag appears drawn next to the phrase "Spain advances", used during the elections and which replaces that of "Always forward". A bet by this formation to prevent the symbols of the country from being linked to the PP and Vox. At the rally held on Sunday at the Ifema in Madrid, the large number of red flags waved by the socialist militants could already be observed.
The PSOE enters the political arena once the Government has been appointed and after the complex investiture pacts with the independence groups with the intention of claiming, as Sánchez pointed out on Sunday, that “Spain is not going to break up.” In fact, Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz invited each other in the investiture debate to demand from the left “Spain as a nation and the constitutional symbols.”
In these transfer movements to prepare the legislature, the president yesterday conveyed to the executive his intention to create a new foundation as a think tank, according to Efe. The idea is for it to be a “powerful” and influential foundation by understanding that the Pablo Iglesias Foundation has not yet managed to reach society. The PSOE would look for experts in various areas to define the political strategy.
Likewise, the Socialist Party plans to hold a political convention in January to strengthen the line of the formation and also to make specific changes in the leadership. At this time, the spokesperson for the party is yet to be defined, since Minister Pilar Alegría has been appointed spokesperson for the Government.
