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2023-07-25 15:31:43

Express Analysis | Espadas believes that the result of 23-J supports the “recovery” of the Andalusian PSOE

The PSOE of Andalusia lived the night of July 23 as a party, despite chaining its third electoral defeat in 13 months. The general secretary of the Andalusian socialists, Juan Espadas, considers the fact of having stopped the absolute majority of PP and Vox to be a success and estimates that Sunday’s count indicates that the Andalusian federation, the most numerous in militants, “step by step is recovering votes” that give it hope to win in the 2024 European and 2026 regional elections.

This party has experienced few joys since the Junta de Andalucía lost in 2018 after almost 37 consecutive years in power. In 2022, the PP was imposed by an absolute majority in the autonomous Parliament; In the municipal elections on May 28, the PP of Juan Manuel Moreno consolidated this change and achieved the municipal governments of the eight capitals and the presidencies of six of the eight councils, and on July 23 the popular ones contributed 25 seats (10 more) to the Congress of Deputies, while the PSOE took 21, four less.

Espadas looks at the 564,224 votes that the PSOE has recovered in Andalusia since the regional elections of June 2022. “We are not exultant, but we are not missing either,” he said. In the municipal elections two months ago, Espadas justified the victory of the PP in Andalusia in the “success of the strategy of harassing Pedro Sánchez”, an argument that is now useless. “This defamation strategy had penetrated the municipal authorities. And now the people who remained silent have mobilized and have gotten involved”, he said. Participation in the general elections in Andalusia was 68.9%, seven and a half points more than in the local ones.

Another electoral argument that has now worked and that in Andalusia destroyed the PSOE has been to warn of an alliance of the PP with the extreme right. About 16% of socialist voters preferred to vote for Juan Manuel Moreno than for Espadas to prevent Vox from entering the Andalusian government, according to the CIS, but this time the same thing has not happened. “The circumstances are different and the times are different, and now the citizens have been very clear about it,” said the socialist leader. Espadas has disdained the voices calling for leadership changes in the Andalusian PSOE.