The Socialists lose three seats and 130,000 votes compared to their worst result in Andalusia but reject a national reading
The defeat was taken for granted. That it would be of such caliber, it was only part of the PSOE’s worst nightmares. The Socialists drilled their historic ground last night, reached by Susana Díaz in 2018 and collapsed to 30 seats and 881,478 votes after four consecutive decades as the first force in Andalusia. The psychological blow to the entire formation is formidable. The Andalusian federation has always been the main granary of votes for the Socialists, the pillar on which it has based its victories in the general elections and now it has changed hands.
In the environment of Pedro Sánchez they had been trying for several days to remove iron from what could happen this Sunday and disdaining any national reading that pointed to a change of cycle, after the map was stained red in the 2019 regional elections and the PSOE was placed as the first force in the two generals of that same year. His argument was that the appointment was too far from the 2023 elections and that, for now, the Executive would focus on its immediate challenges, the anti-crisis plan and the NATO summit. But the blow is undoubted and too severe to simply ignore it.
The Socialists did not even manage to retain their great bastion, the fort they aspired to preserve at all costs: Seville. The phrase that was repeated like an exorcism in the party leadership – «the right is very mobilized and we will go from less to more, as in Castilla y León» – turned out to be just an exercise in self-motivation without any basis. Not a single poll predicted such a resounding debacle last Monday, when, in response to the electoral law’s prohibition on publishing polls in the last week of the campaign, the latest data was released. And the analyzes that pointed to a transfer of votes in favor of the PP have been shown, pending confirmation by the usual post-election studies, to be true.
The PSOE leadership does not even have the ‘consolation’ that Juanma Moreno has to depend on Vox, something that did happen to Alfonso Fernández Mañueco in Castilla y León and that the socialists were quick to use to erode the moderate profile of the president of the national PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The useful vote of fear of the extreme right, which the socialists have never stopped shaking, has apparently ended up favoring their rival.
Continuity of Swords
With these results, it remains to be seen that the leadership of Juan Espadas is not questioned, as Sánchez intends and last night the deputy general secretary of the party, Adriana Lastra, made it clear in an appearance from Ferraz. «The new PSOE of Andalusia has not had time to consolidate an alternative to the Government of Moreno Bonilla –he put forward-; now it will be able to launch a strong project to recover hegemony».
The head of the Executive wants to put up with the former mayor of Seville as general secretary of the PSOE-A to avoid another organic battle that will wear him down at the gates of an election year. Swords was his bet to unseat Susana Díaz from power in the hasty primaries a year ago. Already then, in Ferraz they admitted that, due to their profile and their low level of knowledge, it was a long-term movement, six years. A victory was not required, but it was required to improve or at least match the results of her predecessor, 1,010,889 votes, 27.94% of the total and 33 seats.
In the PSOE, however, there are those who cling to the only analysis favorable to the interests of the Prime Minister: “This proves that the regional presidents, the governments, emerge stronger from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.” That was also Lastra’s argument, which he also took the opportunity to recall that his party is first in voting intentions in all national polls.
Last year, after another historic defeat in the regional elections in Madrid, Sánchez assumed, in any case, that the setback was also for him. Four months later he undertook a profound remodeling of his Executive to gain momentum, also trusting that, once the coronavirus crisis had been overcome, economic recovery would come. Now the forecasts on the progress of finances are less rosy.
#Sánchez #sees #historic #pillar #PSOE #collapse