He said it again and again when presenting his two budget projects, for 2024 and 2025: they were accounts downloaded from ideology and that any political party could perfectly support. Not only that, but the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz (PP), reiterated during the campaign that in Sevillian municipal politics “there is a lot of ideology and a lack of management.” “What I don’t want is to open ideological debates to the people of Seville, I’m not up for that,” defended the then candidate who today, as councilor, is beginning to accumulate agreements with Vox with which he is endorsing several of the ideological mantras of the far right.
Sanz did not want ideological debates, but when he has had to cross this Rubicon, he has done so to protect the stability of his mandate. And that is aware that in the 2023 municipal elections he garnered many votes in the center-left bracket, at a particularly turbulent time in the national political debate before Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE resisted against the odds in the general elections that were called. next.
“I don’t want to change the ideology of the socialist voter in Seville, I want them to lend me their vote,” asked Sanz, who managed to snatch a councilor from the Seville PSOE to prevail. A city council emerged with a majority PP and Vox bloc, but what the mayor did not count on was that Santiago Abascal’s party was going to be castled: either it would enter the local government, or it would not have its support. And so it was for many months.
An ending that everyone counted on
It has taken a year and a half for this political love story, which everyone was counting on beforehand, to crystallize into facts. There was a threat of a government pact involved, in theory dismantled by Juan Manuel Moreno who does not want flirtations with the extreme right that taint his profile of moderation. That line is what Sanz has scrupulously maintained, also a way of not frightening that borrowed vote, until the via crucis to approve the 2024 accounts – which were not available until August after a question of confidence that he lost – made him change radically in posture.
The mayor is certain that 2025 is the key year of his mandate, and for that he needs a budget approved as soon as possible (the plenary session for this will be on January 15) that will allow him to launch many of the projects that will be his results account in the 2027 elections. The objective is that the fruit of this management gives sufficient electoral revenue, including the retention of the citizen who supported the PSOE as a punishment vote.
In this situation, Sanz has bet everything on unblocking a mandate in which, to date, he had found more support on his left than on his right. But this means paying the toll of reaching an agreement with Vox, to which it has begun to make concessions to compensate for its refusal to enter the government. The new harmony crystallized after the summer, and soon began to bear fruit: agreement to limit tourist apartments, approval of tax ordinances, far-right initiatives that went ahead in plenary…
The ideological toll
This support had not had an excessive ideological cost until now, but things have changed when the time for budgets has arrived. Vox was the only party that presented proposals (PSOE and Podemos-IU go for the entire amendment) and the PP approved it 14 out of 20. This included aspirations that are in the DNA of the far-right party: cuts in equality and attention to migrants, an agreement with the Prolife association to support pregnant women and increase financial allocations for religious assistance organizations.
That was on Tuesday, and on Thursday it was time for the official photo, with a solemn staging and José Luis Sanz taking a new step on this path with the signing together with the Vox spokesperson (Cristina Peláez) of the agreement that has been reached. baptized Transform Seville. There, along with projects such as promoting housing promotions, transforming the North Urban Ring Road or increasing the staff of the Local Police, there was an anti-squatter office, another to support birth rates and the reduction of places in municipal shelters.
It was later learned about this pact that it includes an annex, in which almost all the amendments that were not approved on Tuesday are rescued. The same thing is happening here again, and among investments in business parks, resurfacing of streets and a flamenco museum, one of Vox’s greatest priorities has been included, which is to give more substance to the day of the local patron saint, San Fernando, which from From now on it will be the city’s main festival. Along with this, birth aid and limitations on subsidies for international cooperation and the LGTBI community.
An unlocked mandate
The agreement has been celebrated with joy by the general secretary of Vox, Ignacio Garriga, in a visit to the Andalusian Parliament, in which he did not hide the national echo of this step and urged the Andalusian president, Juan Manuel Moreno, to take note to replicate it. in Andalusia. A Moreno, by the way, who has endorsed a negotiation of which he has been promptly informed.
This understanding guarantees Sanz not only the budget for 2025, but goes further because many of the commitments fall outside this time frame. In fact, the document itself highlights a “joint work plan” between the municipal groups of PP and Vox. The mayor does not consider it a stability pact – “I wish it were, it is not that ambitious” – but it does clear his mandate until the next elections by unblocking important projects and keeping the bullet of another trust issue in his chamber. (the law provides for two) linked to the accounts.
Behind closed doors, the councilor sends the message that this is for the good of the city, that it is an alliance without “political readings.” “Seville does not need partisan debates and does need to undertake works,” he defends, emphasizing that the agreement “would be signed by any Sevillian because it includes sensible and necessary measures.” Of course, opening the doors to Vox’s ultra agenda and amending itself by not opening ideological debates.
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