The acting president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, faces the second day of the election this Tuesday with the certainty, in accordance with what different representatives of Vox assured on Monday, that ―two votes in favor― to be able to revalidate his position for the third time in the first attempt.
Moreno faces the interventions of the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups in the opposition, after in his speech on Monday, one of the red lines of the ultras to close an agreement. The spokesperson for that formation, Manuel Gavira (15 deputies), has been the only one who has referred to the content of those negotiations, about which he has been asked by the leaders of the left-wing coalitions, Antonio Maíllo of Por Andalucía, and José Ignacio García, of Adelante Andalucía, who have spoken before in the round of responses to the popular leader and the general secretary of the Andalusian socialists, María Jesús Montero, in his speech early in the morning. afternoon.
Montero, who has returned to the Andalusian Parliament after his years in the Government of Pedro Sánchez, has also questioned Moreno about the content of the agreements with Vox. “We have come to talk out of nowhere, when underneath a small print that is stolen from parliament is being discussed,” he noted in reference to the opacity with which the agreement for the investiture between PP and Vox is being negotiated.
In this sense, the general secretary of the PSOE of Andalusia has assured that this debate has been “a fraud” and has reproached the popular leader for always pointing out the central government and her in particular in all his interventions. “This session is a fraud. Do not hide behind me or Pedro Sánchez and explain the project for Andalusia here. Unfortunately, I am not the one who is running for the investiture.”
Montero, who on several occasions has claimed to speak on behalf of “the left of this chamber”, something that Moreno has drawn his attention to, has reproached the popular leader for blaming the left for having to negotiate with Vox. “It doesn’t work. I want you to know that the PSOE has not received a single call from you or your collaborators. You have not called for two reasons: because you know that we cannot endorse the policies of dismantling public services and because basically Vox’s policies do not concern you because the ones you practice are perfectly comparable to those of the extreme right.
The exchange between the socialist leader and the popular leader has been the most bitter and the one that has entered the most personal territory. Both politicians have repeatedly accused each other of lying and Moreno has even told her: “You are just passing through. And you are going to do what your predecessors did, take the record in the Senate, in her case with a special motivation to take that record,” she said in a veiled insinuation to the Leire Díaz case in which senior officials of the SEPI, dependent on the Ministry of Finance, which she directed, are accused. Montero herself has asked Moreno to clarify what she had meant by that phrase: “Are you saying that they are going to charge me? Dropping, insinuating is not very brave.”
Vox, to Moreno: “The Andalusians have told him that he has to understand with Vox, even if he doesn’t want to or like it”
Vox has put its conditions on the table to allow Moreno’s investiture as president of the Board. Not because they are well-known, they sounded less harsh when the spokesman for the ultra party took the stand, defending the “national priority”, “the end of climate fanaticism”, the tax reform and putting an end to the so-called effect of “mass immigration” that, according to him, threatens security.
“The Andalusians have told him that he has to understand with Vox, even if he doesn’t want to or like it,” he told the PP candidate for the presidency of the Board. Gavira has climbed onto the tribune of the plenary hall with these words: “The elephant is here. I prefer it to being called an embezzler, corrupt or whoremonger. Andalusians want more Vox,” his spokesperson stressed, to highlight that the right-wing parties add more than those on the left.
The House groups have continued their intervention with absolute silence, only interrupted at the end of their 30 minutes of their first speech. According to him, the result in Andalusia is no different from that which has occurred in Extremadura, Aragon and Castilla y León, where the regional presidents of the PP have formalized a coalition agreement.
Gavira has ruled out that Moreno will be elected this afternoon in the first vote, but has praised the “good disposition” of the popular people to reach an agreement that allows the formation of the new government, although he regretted the 12 days it took the PP to pick up the phones to start the conversations. Based on what the spokesperson said, he himself does not rule out that the agreement is ready for the second vote to be held next Thursday.”
“We need specific deadlines and guarantees that the agreements they reach will be fulfilled,” Gavira told Moreno. The Vox spokesperson has told the deputies that there is no secret agreement: “If you want to know where we are going, look at what has happened elsewhere. We want a government that puts the Spanish people at the center of decisions. It has to dedicate itself to protecting its own people, and that applies the principle of national priority in all social policies.”
The representative of the ultra party has repeated on several occasions that the next Andalusian government will be “a bastion against Pedro Sánchez’s mafia.”
In his reply – the most anticipated because it could allow us to glimpse the content of absolutely hermetic negotiations – Moreno regretted that this afternoon he will not be able to count on his support: “I believe that those conditions could have been met so that a government could be formed today and I hope that in the next session we can dialogue with the maximum rationality to reach an agreement.”
The popular leader has avoided entering into the specific content of that agreement whose axes Gavira has defined, but he has wanted to reframe them. “We are not talking about a program or a proposal against anyone, nor far from reality, but rather one that responds to the needs of Andalusia, where there are urgent challenges,” he said to thank Vox for “having modulated some of its proposals and made an effort at understanding.”
Moreno has claimed his first agreement with the ultras of 2018 – “we have not reneged on it,” he had responded to the spokesperson for Adelante Andalucía” – and has defended that his party complied with it 90%, to respond to the distrust shown by Gavira. The leader of the PP has charged against the immigration policy of the central government, recriminating the distribution of unaccompanied minors and has also questioned the “disinterest” of the Ministry of the Interior in the fight against drug trafficking in Andalusia. He has also charged against the cases of corruption surrounding the PSOE and the central Government, in reference to the words of the Vox spokesperson that the new Andalusian Government would be a “bastion against Pedro Sánchez’s mafia.”
García: “Juanma’s costume has fallen off and he has put on Moreno Bonilla’s suit, the usual PP one”
The leaders of the left-wing coalitions have referred to the need to agree with Vox, first the spokesperson for Por Andalucía, Antonio Maíllo, and then the spokesperson for Adelante Andalucía, José Ignacio García, who has asked the popular leader to be clear about the content of the negotiations. “Get up here and be clear, what is your political project?” he told him.
The leader of the Andalusian coalition (eight deputies) has drawn attention to the policies defended by the ultra, incompatible with the moderation and Andalusism defended by the popular leader: “Are we going to have a vice president who denies sexist violence? Are we going to have a vice president who does not go to 28F, who says that Andalusia is an Islamist homeland of a certain Blas Infante?; What is going to happen in 4D, are we going to have a vice president? that says that the Andalusian flag is a mole? Are we going to have a vice president who denies climate change?”
García, who recalled that Moreno had already made far-right policies while he had an absolute majority – “Vox is great for him because it makes him look like the moderate character that he is not” – has warned the popular baron that, with his obligation to agree with the ultras, “the Juanma costume has dropped and he has put on the Moreno Bonilla suit, the usual PP one.” “Welcome to your last term,” he predicted.
The Adelante spokesperson has also alluded to the national priority, to defend that, while talking about whether Moreno is going to assume it or not, attention is diverted from his public policies. “If you are such a humanist, get up here and say that national priority is a racist invention, be a democrat, be clear. You don’t say it because if we eliminate it from the equation, we start talking about waiting lists, about your privatization policies and that is what you fear most in the world.”
Maíllo: “The moderate is over. He is going to have to assume Abascal’s agenda”
The leader of Por Andalucía, Antonio Maíllo (five seats), has referred to this pact, the first to open the turn to reply to the popular leader. “He has not talked about the elephant in the room. He has not talked about Vox. The only relevant fact that justifies an investiture session is that he is negotiating with Vox,” he snapped. On his return to the Andalusian Parliament, the IU coordinator has predicted the end of the era of moderation and temperance that the candidate for the presidency of the Junta boasts: “You have run out of moderation, Mr. Moreno. You are going to have to assume the agenda of Abascal and Feijóo. That is your drama and your defeat.”
Maíllo has pointed out that Moreno’s speech the previous day “is worth both what he said and what he didn’t say.” And among the silences of the PP candidate, the absence of reference to immigration, on which Vox pivots its concept of “national priority,” stands out. “With his silence,” Maíllo said, “he assumes the barbarity of the extreme right.” The leftist leader has reproached Moreno for not being able to argue “ignorance” with the national priority, a “supremacist, fascist and xenophobic idea.” The IU coordinator has questioned the popular leader if he considers that he is mentally ill: “Because he is negotiating with people who believe that the spokesperson for Por Andalucía, because he is gay, is mentally ill.”
Maíllo has reproached him for not talking about the negotiations with Vox, because he is “embarrassed.” “It’s funny that he talks about moderation with Vox. He needs to be sworn in as president with Vox’s votes, but he is nothing more than a pawn on the board like the presidents of Extremadura, Aragón and Castilla y León. He wants to be different, but they have told him to comply with the roadmap.”
Moreno needs an absolute majority – 55 of the 109 seats in the Andalusian Chamber – to be sworn in this afternoon. After his speech on Monday, Vox, the party on which his re-election depends, made it clear that it would not be in this first vote, leaving in the air the possibility of supporting him on Thursday, where the popular leader would only need a simple majority – more yeses than noes. In these last hours there has been no progress on the agreement. “We continue the same, we continue talking,” said the popular baron before entering the plenary hall. The ultra spokesperson, Manuel Gavira, has gone in the same direction: “We are working hard, talking about measures to seek a good agreement.”
