On May 28, the people of Cordoba will have closed their May Festive with the closing of the Fair of Nuestra Señora de la Salud and, as is tradition, they will decide their mayor for the next four years at the polls after some festivities, Crosses and Patios, that serve as an electoral stage for political leaders.
Politics between parties to which the people of Cordoba are already more than accustomed, since 60% of the times they have had to go to the polls since the restoration of democracy in Spain, the pre-campaign, campaign or vote has been held in the as part of its May Festival, large festivities in the capital that, to this day, span more than a month.
Since the constitutional referendum of 1978, until the Andalusian ones of 2022, the people of Cordoba have gone to the polls a total of 45 times (14 in general, 12 regional, 11 municipal and 8 European), to which must be added the five referendums held (Constitution, NATO, European Constitution, Statute of Autonomy and its reform), although none affects the May Holiday.
Of the 45 "usual" appointments, up to 27 of them their pre-campaign, campaign or vote, have been held in the months covered by the Cordoba festivities (end of April, May and first week of June on some occasions), which means 60 percent of the total.
The Patios de Córdoba, a World Heritage Site in 2012 that cover the central weeks of May, have gained ground in the electoral appointment of national leaders who, however, have only competed for the vote in the general elections four times in May Holiday (1986, 1993, 2016 and 2019).
Chronicles and images of presidents of the Government through the streets of the Historic Center of Córdoba, World Heritage since 1994 after the Mosque-Cathedral (1984), were a regular stamp of the May Festival, and the campaign teams of González, Aznar, Zapatero, Rajoy and Sánchez, who even held an act in the beautiful Casa de las Campanas (2019), knew how to exhibit the electoral appeal of the Cordoba festivities.
On this occasion, the President of the Government has already held an event in Córdoba when the people of Cordoba inaugurated the Montilla Moriles Wine Tasting, while the presence of Feijoó is expected and perhaps that of Yolanda Díaz as well, before a favorable setting for their project before the brand Hacemos Córdoba (IU-Podemos-Más País) for the "battle of Córdoba".
The Andalusian leaders, who have risked the regional government up to five times on the May Festival (1982, 1986, 1990, 1994 and 2022), have also visited El Arenal de la Feria.
From Chaves, Griñán and Arenas, always as a candidate, to Susana Díaz and Juanma Moreno, who with her electoral advance to June of last year began the campaign at the end of the Cordoba Fair.
On that occasion even Moreno and Juan Marín, his vice president at the time, met for a long time between the streets of the fairgrounds and booths without there being a formal meeting between them.
All of the Europeans, the eight from 1987 to 2019, have been held between May and June, although for the people of Cordoba they were already far away and too many, and the headliners did not shine so much in the May Festival.
Of the eleven local elections, only the first on April 3, 1979, which resulted in the government of the historic "Red Caliph" Julio Anguita, were held outside the "focus" of the May Festival, while the rest have seen how, after closing his Fair, the command baton of Capitulares, his seat of government, came to change hands.
From 1979 to 1995, the government of the Cordoba capital fell to the IU, a "red bulwark" in Spain ruled by Anguita and Herminio Trigo, until the victory of Rafael Merino's PP on May 28 at the Córdoba fair.
It took IU a term to recover the Mayor's Office with Rosa Aguilar (1999), Anguita's "pupil", who consolidated two consecutive legislatures until her departure to go to the Andalusian Government of the PSOE in the middle of the third, which allowed the PP to José Antonio Nieto (2011) recover the place for his training.
The local government lasted only one legislature for the PP, which was supported by the PSOE, with Isabel Ambrosio (2015), for the first time in a "secondary" square until then and thanks to the support of the fragmentation of the rest of the left (IU and Let's win Córdoba).
A division, but now on the right (PP-Cs-Vox), served the popular José María Bellido in 2019 to reconquer the capital of Córdoba. Now, after the campaign week at the Fair and the closing of their May Festival, the people of Cordoba will choose to turn left again or give a second consecutive government to the right, something that has never been achieved in the capital.
