The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, presented this Monday in Seville in which he claims “the formula of calm, tranquility, serenity and moderation”, as the “correct option” – in his own words – that allowed him to become president of the Junta in 2018 and revalidate the Government with a historic absolute majority. But this afternoon perhaps the chapter that was most interesting – probably, not to the audience, the majority being members of the Andalusian PP and councilors of its two legislatures – was the one that was not written: how it has addressed the breast cancer screening scandal, the biggest crisis it has suffered since leading the autonomous Government and the one that seems to have thrown that temperance strategy out of place. “I felt overwhelmed and helpless,” he admitted.
Moreno’s memoirs were announced almost at the same time that Cadena Ser gave voice to the first testimonies of women who had developed a tumor, when they believed they were healthy because no one had informed them that their screening was inconclusive. After being asked by the host of the event, the journalist and deputy director of The reasonCarmen Morodo, the Andalusian president, has assured that, if he had been writing the book at that time, he would have included a chapter dedicated to the failures in the prevention program, “like all the positive and bitter things that I have experienced, like Covid.” Moreno, of which, yes, he has said that he found out at the moment the scandal broke, and has said that he has felt “frustration and disappointment how things can be manipulated intentionally and unintentionally.” The popular baron has pointed out all those who have “questioned the screening programs and the entire health system” and “the special interest from a political point of view in distorting things” that exists in Andalusia, “when the same thing happens in other territories and the decibels are not raised.”
In Coexistence Manual, Beyond explaining the Andalusian path, the popular leader focuses on how he managed to establish his leadership in the face of the disbelief of his own party colleagues, who doubted that he could take over the reins of the party when he assumed the presidency of the Andalusian PP in 2014, precisely because of that calm character. “Juanma does less harm than a white fish”; “Juanma, give them a hard time!” or “he lacks a fang,” were the phrases he often heard at rallies or on the street. He was also aware that his people “expected an aggressive profile from me.” But Moreno makes it clear: “What happens is that I am not like that.” Because what he also strives to emphasize in his memoirs is that the mark of a serene man came from home, and that And in this afternoon’s presentation, the popular leader wanted to highlight it by remembering that he “drank” from “the balanced, kind and compassionate way of being” of his grandfather Manuel.
Another axis on which Moreno’s memoirs pivot is to reject that his arrival to power in 2018 was the result of a “carom” – in fact he dedicates an entire chapter to reflecting on it -, but rather the culmination of a very thoughtful campaign, in which it was always on the table that change could be achieved by adding other political forces: Cs and Vox – an equation that the book takes for granted and presents as something much easier to achieve than what the negotiations then showed. and that, he affirms, began to take shape in the 2016 general elections. Although here he also had to deal with skepticism within his own ranks. “I will do everything I can and more to achieve it, Juanma, but you should know that it is impossible,” deputy Pablo Venzal told him when they were designing the 2018 campaign, in a chapter that is dedicated especially to him. “To pa ná,” his people repeated to him in the electoral caravan, in a very Andalusian expression that alludes to the awareness that the effort made is not going to be of any use. A feeling of helplessness that this afternoon Moreno has acknowledged has assaulted him during his two terms in health matters: “If I have dedicated time and resources to anything, it has been health care,” he assured.
Feminism, immigration, ‘fake news’ and denialism
Nor did Moreno’s father believe much in his chances of becoming president of the Board. “President of the Board, Juanma, it is something very difficult,” she told him in one of their last conversations when he was already very ill in the hospital. The chapter dedicated to his father is one of the most personal and emotional in his memoirs, where he also recognizes the fundamental role of his wife, Manuela Villena. “In addition to everything else, my best advisor,” she says in the book and she insisted this afternoon to highlight that it was she who was decisive in her taking the step of returning to Andalusia, renouncing, as is common for many women of her generation, her professional ambitions. “She could be a magnificent candidate for many things: she has intelligence, capacity, determination and a way with words,” he insisted this afternoon.
“21st century is the century of women. Today’s women are ‘superwomen,'” Moreno stressed in the presentation, paraphrasing her own book in the part dedicated to feminism. Because, in addition to reviewing some political milestones of his legislatures where this Andalusian path has the most impact – achieving the success of a coalition government or economic development -, Moreno intersperses reflections on cross-cutting issues such as women or sexist violence, immigration – which he is in favor of -, climate change and even the relationship of the press with the political class and the problem of misinformation, questioning denialism and defending positions very far from those defended by the most extreme wing of his party.
Ayuso, the “catapult” from Feijóo to La Moncloa
And Moreno also refers to her, although without addressing her in that way, when he refers to Isabel Díaz Ayuso as “one of the catapults that will lead Alberto to be president of the Government.” He does so in a chapter in which he defends the right to doubt and change one’s mind and after quoting Franklin D. Roosevelt: “action should always be preferred to criticism,” to present the president of the Community of Madrid as an “example of determination” within her party.
The Andalusian president insists on consensus and coexistence as an antidote to polarization and although the tone of his memoirs avoids belligerence, he does choose an adversary to oppose: Pedro Sánchez. It escapes no one that e-Coexistence manual vs resistance manual-. He directly accuses the President of the Government of sowing “the seed of the polarization that Spain is currently experiencing and the genesis of the transformation that the PSOE has experienced towards institutional populism, which consists of building walls that divide citizens”, an idea, that of the wall, that he has repeated this afternoon in Seville.
In this polarization, Moreno tiptoes around Vox, although he does defend that if in order to be inaugurated he had had to reject sexist violence, he would not have agreed. “You can be president without having been the candidate with the most votes as long as you don’t fool anyone,” he says in the memoirs, again to contrast his investiture – the first that Vox supported in a Spanish Parliament – with the support of independentistas or Podemos to Sánchez’s PSOE. In its pages it does refer to the breakfast that it had with Santiago Abascal in 2022 in which he confirmed that he would not support the regional budgets of that year. It is perhaps one of the most interesting anecdotes collected in the book and sheds light on the ins and outs of power. In this afternoon’s talk with Morodo, he did defend, again appealing to that moderate spirit, that the best way to combat Vox is “from tranquility and serenity.”
In his book, Moreno also alludes to those moments of loneliness that politicians have and the consequences that arise from their profession, including insomnia. Losing the absolute majority, precisely thanks to the penetration of Vox’s speech, is not something that will keep you up at night right now, the president said this afternoon. “I’m not considering losing the absolute majority. With all the impossible things we’ve had, we’ve gotten this far,” he said, recalling much of the content of his memoirs. But later he did recognize that, if that happened, “the stability and framework of coexistence that we have given ourselves” would be “in danger.” “Andalusians are not aware of what they have. Approving budgets every year, passing laws, decrees, selling stability and trust would be much more difficult to do and I refer to our neighbors in Extremadura,” he said in reference to the electoral advance due to the impossibility of approving the regional accounts due to the Vox blockade.
Mujica, JFK, Reagan, Imbroda, Aguirre and Feijóo
In his memoirs, Moreno dedicates a chapter to praising the figure of the late president of Uruguay, José Mujica, whom Moreno never met, but whose “coherence” he admires. Also surprising is his predilection for President Kennedy, whom he praises for his restraint when dealing with relevant international crises, and for breaking with previous political schemes, incorporating television as an instrument to reach more citizens or promoting closeness by allowing official photos to be taken in the privacy of his home. However, in that chapter he allocates more paragraphs to the sense of humor of one of the references of conservative politicians, such as Ronald Reagan.
Already in the domestic sphere, among his collaborators and colleagues in Government, it is his former Minister of Education, Javier Imbroda, who died while he was in office, to whom he dedicates the most time and whose advice he refers to most: “Stay away from the sad ones,” he told him. The reference to his first Health Minister and now President of Parliament, Jesús Aguirre, also stands out, whom he praises for his “closeness, familiarity and affability”, qualities that his penultimate counselor, Rocío Hernández, suffered from, dismissed due to the screening scandal. Of course, Moreno also dedicates a chapter to Alberto Núñez Feijóo – “the next president of the Government, but also a friend”, whom he identifies as the ‘Magic Johnson of the PP’.
