"In Philosophy there is only one serious problem, and that is suicide." The phrase that serves as a watershed for The Myth of Sisyphus, the essay by Albert Camus, one of the most admirable intelligences of enlightened Europe, links two simultaneous fatalities. On the one hand, the death desired by oneself; on the other, the unknown (metaphysics) of this longing, which in Spain claimed the lives of 4,000 people last year. In the first calamity, victim and executioner are embodied in a single subject: the suicide. The secondary breakdown enunciates the great mystery: what is the real reason that someone decides to put an end to its existence?
Suicide, before which society tends to look down, is disturbing, but this does not mean that sometimes it does not respond to a certain logic, even if it is terrible. This is what happens to the Andalusian socialists this Christmas marked by the confrontation between the powers of the State, entangled in successive pulses that deteriorate common institutions.
The Andalusian PSOE defends, with a vehemence as intense as perhaps sterile, the official position of Moncloa in its unprecedented lawsuit with the Constitutional Court. Juan Espadas, Pedro Sánchez's ambassador in the South, has aligned himself – to the millimeter – with the government theses, just like an obedient and servile general upon hearing the sire's instructions.
There are, however, differences between them. While the President of the Government promoted this ordeal to take to the extreme the strategy of agitation for survival initiated after the autonomous elections in Andalusia – the PP bared its teeth with the absolute majority of Moreno Bonilla, interpreted as a prelude that Moncloa conjures up by polarizing a board where calm never reigns – the leader of the southern socialists is like an abandoned buoy.
It is at the bottom of the sea (in opposition), it has difficulties to float (electorally) and it is not capable of assuming the role of orientation that, for four decades, the largest group of the PSOE has exercised. Sanchez is still in the ring; Espadas kisses the canvas, although he has the feeling, not entirely uncertain, of not having even come out to fight. That's how things are.
In five months some municipal ones arrive that for Ferraz can be a test of strength or a sign of weakness. For the head of the socialists of the South, they are more like an open heart operation. From the political operating room in Andalusia, where four years ago Susana Díaz lost the Quirinale, the socialist patient can leave battered or deceased. What is certain is that he will not come out as the lawyer Vidriera de Cervantes: neutral.
His pathology is not a sudden illness, but an old one. And its outcome will have far-reaching consequences. Not all of them are the author of Espadas, but the captain of the San Vicente ship –Seville street where the regional headquarters of the socialist leadership is located– is in the front line facing a different storm, which surpasses political destiny –whatever it may be– of the President of the Government. It is not ruled out even that a possible revolt of the crew happens.
The leader of the PSOE del Sur finds himself trapped in a whirlwind that threatens to destroy the timbers of an essential ship in the correlation of forces of Spanish politics. This was the case until 2018. Now everything is different: Espadas occupies the organic apex of the socialists by elimination. He was a useful pawn in his day, but he has never played an epic hero.
His favorite tune has always been background music: being next to the power of the day, whatever it is, clapping. Seeing him face such an immense wave – the extinction of the original embryo of the PSOE of Suresnes –, far from giving his figure a certain moral support, has placed him at an impossible juncture that alternates between vaudeville (comic) and masquerade (pathetic). ).
The situation is beyond you. A few weeks ago she had to turn on gas light after Moncloa decided to leave Granada, whose council is governed by the PSOE, out of the competition for the headquarters of the Artificial Intelligence Agency in favor of La Coruña.
The Nasrid councilor, Francisco Cuenca, to try to save the furniture before the municipal elections, announced an appeal against the government resolution and it had to be a Sanchista commissioner –Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis, first vice president of Congress– who issued warnings of “moderation” –not friendly– to the mayor. Espadas seconded Ferraz's position but was unable to deal with the discontent of the socialists in the city of the Alhambra.
This Monday was worse. In the morning, the Center for Andalusian Studies – a sort of CIS of the Junta – published an official survey that placed the head of the Socialists below 20% in voting intentions (almost 5 points less than in June). In six months, Espadas would have lost up to eight of his scarce thirty deputies in the Parliament of the Five Wounds.
The PSOE, which on 19J obtained the worst electoral results in its history, still has a margin of collapse. You can still dig into the hole. Hours later it became known that the Socialists and the parties to their left – the coalition For Andalusia, split by the war between Podemos and IU – forgot to present their amendments to the budget of the first absolute majority of Moreno Bonilla within the regulatory period. Epic fail.
It is a serious negligence in parliamentary terms that will prevent Espadas from defending his political alternatives with credibility in the autonomous chamber. He has long seemed burnt out, angry and, in political terms, mute. He fears the outcome of local elections that produce panic – the PSOE continues to decline despite the slight electoral wear of the PP – and he lacks a foothold on his left to maintain relevant mayoralties and councils.
Within the socialist organization, trapped in a confusion that in Andalusia has now amounted to four long years and questioned by the risky bets of legislation to the letter of Pedro Sánchez, depressed by the moral impact of seeing Griñán go to jail and a part of what was his political aristocracy, the feeling is that of living through the end of the race.
The hour of twilight is far away. The party that governed Andalusia since the beginning of self-government, in the eighties, has lost the banner of autonomy – snatched away by the lukewarm Andalusianism of Moreno Bonilla –, it has no message, it lacks its own political project, its past accuses it and it does not It has paintings to survive this shipwreck.
The only roadmap is to stand square before Ferraz's diktat, without this submission, unheard of for many of its historical leaders, translating into a minimal capacity for influence. That the internal opposition to Sánchez in the PSOE, even if testimonial, identifies only with Castilla-La Mancha and Aragón instead of with Andalusia does not cease to be evidence of the loss of (internal) power at a time in Spanish politics especially complex.
Supporting the president without nuances in any of his adventures – parliamentary agreements with ERC, PNV and Bildu, or the reform of the Penal Code to dilute sedition and embezzlement – has the Andalusian mayors of the PSOE plunged into absolute confusion. Espadas insists on the old formula of Fernando VII: "Let's all march, and I the first, along the path of Pedro Sánchez." But, unlike the absolutist monarch, his conduct is not due to cynicism. It is due to a lack of independence that begins to resemble inability.
It is doubtful that the head of the Andalusian socialists will survive 28M. Those who put him in charge of the party know that his time has ended without actually having begun. Socialism is committing suicide in Andalusia with the enthusiasm of a militia cadet who obeys the hierarchy without question. He without dignity before the trance (nothing virtual) of disappearing while his new clerics launch sermons celebrating his immolation. The never seen.
