(Olivenza, Badajoz, 66 years old) has died this Sunday of stomach cancer, as reported by the PSOE. Married and with two children, presided over the Board of Extremadura for 12 years and in two stages. From 2007 to 2011 and from 2015 to 2023. Between Medias (2011 and 2015) he led the socialist opposition after an unpublished agreement between the United Left and the PP, which gave the presidency of the region to the popular José Antonio Monago. Already in 2015, however, and again he commanded the region to the last autonomous elections of 2023, which he won, but after a Vox and PP pact suddenly finished his stage in the Extremadura Parliament. Before leaving, yes, he left advice to the current president, María Guardiola:
“As you treat people when you’re uploading, it’s how they will be treated when you go down the top.”
Since then, Vara served as second vice president of the Senate.
To understand the impact of Vara in Extremadura, a community of one million inhabitants, we must travel to the 90s, at the time of the former president, where he was a counselor for social welfare and health to give, later, the leap to the presidency. For two decades, Vara marked a way of doing politics. Not only has it been an autonomous, but also national reference, where it was the speaker of the Extremaduras with its quiet and dialogue style. He never raised his voice in the debates. Not in interviews. Serene, calm, imperturbable.
He used to say that medicine was chosen. And then, yes, politics called at its doors. “My mother,” he said in his last speech at the Extremadura Assembly, “he told me that when I got into politics I did not get with anyone or put me in trouble, the second I have not been able to fulfill it because politics is full of messes.”
Son of a judge and educated at a Jesuit College, he graduated in Medicine at the University of Córdoba in 1983 and, three years later, entered the corps of Forens. It was number one of its promotion at the Center for Judicial Studies. His first place with destiny was in his land, in 1988, and a year later he directed the Medical-Forense clinic of Badajoz. At Extremadura University he taught toxicology and health legislation from 1988 to 1995.
The Assembly of Extremadura arrived after exercising four years as a councilor in Olivenza, a pacese town of 11,000 neighbors attached to Portugal, where he ordered to make the move after his departure from the presidential office of Mérida in July 2023. “We feel children of Spain and grandchildren of Portugal,” he said once after a controversy of the Portuguese Defense Minister, who claimed Olivenza as his own. “Yesterday’s borders are today bridges that build the Europe to which together we belong.” The Portuguese minister is still silent.
Dialogant and conversationalist, with his temperate forms he reconciled with Pedro Sánchez after not betting on him. In the 2014 primaries support Eduardo Madina. And in 2017 to Susana Díaz. However, after Sánchez’s victory he was one of the first socialist barons to speak in public. “Militancy has spoken, which is not an obstacle to defending what each one thinks and wants, in regard to the programs. I am going to ask Extremadños to ratify Sanchez and support the executive he proposes.” And Sánchez incorporated him as head of coordination of the federations in the Executive.
Conversator, always away from political polarization, was a supporter of agreeing with citizens and Podemos. “If we were all to see how we solve the problems of citizens, we would probably discover that we agreed many more than we disagreed,” he once said.
During his last stage at the head of the Board, there was the greatest demonstration of Extremadura in Madrid to claim a decent train. He uploaded himself on the train and walked on foot next to his to the Plaza de España with the green, white and black flag, of his land. “There will be a before and after this protest,” he ventured.
Already in 2018 he told in his personal blog that Sánchez offered to be a minister. Later, he revealed that he could also be another occasion. “I have always wanted to transform my land,” he settled.
Months after leaving the Assembly of Extremadura, on December 8, 2023, he made public that he suffered a stomach cancer and that would retire for a time from public life. “I trust that everything will be fine, but for this I need to concentrate with all my strength.”
On May 10, the Extremadura militancy surprised during the Provincial Congress of the Socialists of Badajoz. Before a full auditorium, he took the floor: “I want to continue living for mine and for so many people who need us. He spent a lot of time lying down, especially the days following the treatment, which I have a lot of time to think. I think a lot about the solitude of the background corridor.”
A month later, he also went to an informative breakfast in the capital of Spain to present Minister Óscar López, with whom he kept very good friendship. “When one is sick of cancer,” he observed, “sometimes, others may think that you have fallen a misfortune.
“And what do you feel more proud as president?”
“This region”, “had a school failure above 50% of the Spanish average at the beginning of democracy. Today has 10%, two points from the average below. We are better and education is what changes the peoples.” On October 6 he would have turned 67.
