Two sisters is a city of particular and abstract evocations, politically speaking. The municipality is indissolubly linked to its former mayor, the socialist, until he decided to leave the Mayor’s Office in January 2022. With him, the town not only became the most populous in Andalusia (140,463 inhabitants) in socialist hands, but also grew in parallel in infrastructure, public services, industrial polygons or universities (it has a public and a private public). But the city is too. His velodrome recorded historical full with Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, also welcomed massive meetings José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and, that was the place chosen by Pedro Sánchez to launch his career to the primaries that would give him the general secretariat, after being abruptly appealed from that same position in October 2016, and where he began the campaign of the 2019 generals and the pre -campaign of the last elections, where few came I would keep in La Moncloa. And in this, also, Toscano, like the two sisters herself, serves as a link, because he was behind all those reinventions and rebirths of the socialist leader.
Therefore, the president of the Government has wanted to be present in the act in which the City Council of Dos Hermanas has given to his ex -regidor the gold medal of the city and the title of adoptive son, and has not forgotten that support. “It is no secret that today I would not be here if I had not had your unconditional support in my worst moments,” Sánchez thanked Tuscan. A support that has also recognized the honoree himself at the start of his speech, prior to that of the socialist leader: “I am proud to have been able to contribute to the fact that in those moments of doubt what you did with your life, you will make the decision to work to serve our country.”
In the act, which has been led by another known Nazareno, the president of the Government has praised his task as mayor and as a reference, although always from the bambaline, of the PSOE. “You have been an atypical leader, a strange being in contemporary politics,” said the socialist leader. “There are those who go through politics and there are those who dignify it and you are one of those who have shown that power is only worth it when it is an instrument to improve the quality of life of the people,” he said to also summarize his almost 40 years as mayor of two sisters: “This is the result of a clear political vision, rigorous and vocation management.” “You will tell me how absolute majorities are achieved,” he joked.
Toscano, 75, has managed to influence the national PSOE without moving from two sisters and always promoting the change in the party. In the 90s he opted for the renovators, embodied in Josep Borrell, in front of the warmen, led by Joaquín Almunia; He also supported Zapatero in front of José Bono and was the one who took Sánchez’s political career from the coma, and won the primaries to Susana Díaz, supported by the device. Then, the Nazarene town that was already a totem of socialism became a talisman for Sánchez and, therefore, it was also Toscano who, who, almost all analysts, took lost, in their city, “we had to mobilize the emotional part of the vote,” explained the former mayor to this newspaper.
It is no accident, therefore, that the president this noon has also valued his advice: “I have always found in you the vitality of the youngest militant and the serenity of a veteran public servant.” And, it is that, politicians of this Cariz have also gathered in the tribute. Among the public were the former president of the Board, Manuel Chaves or former counselors such as Gaspar Zarrías, José Antonio Viera – in one of his first public acts after his partial acquittal in the case of the ere— or Luis Pizarro.
Although Toscano has been retired from politics since 2022, its influence on the Andalusian PSOE continues. His successor in the position, the current mayor, a kind of the right hand of the general secretary and vice president of the Government, María Jesús Montero – also present in the act. He is in whom, took advantage of his knowledge of the internal apparatus, she, who will not have a continued presence in the community due to her other obligations in Madrid, will support to guarantee the organic unity of the party, love the revolt waters that fall in some and have the PSOE perfectly greased for the next autonomic elections. Rodríguez has a much more marked profile and greater influence than that of his predecessors during the stage of Juan Swords – of whom both Toscano and he were worthwhile – at the head of the Andalusian socialists.
Precisely Rodríguez has been the one who in a more accurate way has managed to gloss the virtues at the head of the Mayor’s Office and as a politician of his mentor: “The true power is not found in the positions, but in the ability to change the lives of people with the closeness and example.”
