Success and victimhood, the squaring of the Andalusian circle

Granada / CordobaA Cordovan, Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, president of the Spanish Republic (1931-36), is the author of one of the phrases that best defined the dual nature of Catalanism. Don Niceto told Francesc Cambó, in the Cortes, that “you cannot be at the same time the Bolívar of Catalonia and the Bismarck of Spain”. A phrase that could also have been applied to Lluís Companys, Miquel Roca or Gabriel Rufián. Being a Catalanist in Madrid implies a contradiction difficult to manage. On the other hand, Andalusianism is an equally intense sentiment but one that combines with Spanishness as well as manzanilla and soda at the Feria de Abril. Because Andalusia (which according to its Statute of Autonomy is a nationality) has an irrefutable, even exuberant, identity, but it is Castilian in origin, and has contributed as much as Castile to the definition of what is Spanish.

This is why the current president of the Board, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, has been able to conduct an electoral campaign with a clearly regionalist (even patriotic) tone without fear of being compared to Bolívar. Thanks to Moreno, the PP has become the repository of Andalusian sentiment and interests in the face of a Spanish government that is “enemy”, not because it is Spanish, but because it is socialist, and for selling its soul to the Catalans, the great rivals of the North, opportunistic enemies of Andalusia and Spain, which are one and the same. This narrative, combined with the relative progress of the Andalusian economy – whether due to its own merits or to the continuous injection of solidarity funds from Spain and the EU – means that Juanma's PP has everything to win a broad victory, and perhaps – if the D'Hondt law does not spoil it in some minor province – a new absolute majority.Juanma has everything to win a broad victory, and perhaps – if the D'Hondt law does not spoil it in some minor province – a new absolute majority.Success or grievance?

Moreno Bonilla does not accuse the contradiction that Alcalá-Zamora attributed to Cambó, but he incurs in another very flagrant contradiction: he has spent the campaign saying that Andalusia aspires to be the first economy in Spain and at the same time has insisted obsessively on the comparative grievance with Catalonia. Triumphalsim and victimism hand in hand. In terms of electoral tactics, it is understood: his rival, the socialist María Jesús Montero, is the co-author of the regional financing agreement that the PSOE agreed with ERC, and which has been suspended precisely so as not to harm the –low– electoral expectations of the socialists. Montero has striven to say that Andalusia receives, with the new agreement, more money than Catalonia; and that the PP has not presented any alternative, even though the current system has been expired for more than a decade. But he has lost this battle; the Catalonia wildcard always works. “You have betrayed Andalusia. You should run in the Catalan elections,” Juanma told Montero in the Canal Sur electoral debate. The truth is that the Junta boasts of having reduced fiscal pressure and allows itself whims such as deducting the gym membership fee, thanks to its chronic fiscal surplus.

A few hours strolling through the center of Seville, Malaga or Granada is enough to realize the extraordinary change that Andalusia has undergone, and to grasp that the general feeling of the population is one of self-esteem and awareness of progress. It is another matter whether they attribute it solely to the regional PP; it is difficult to set a start date for the Andalusian leap forward, but there is no doubt that the 92 Expo and the arrival of the AVE are considered historical milestones.

In the big capitals, the Andalusian lifestyle coexists well –for now– with immigration and international tourism, and the technology parks and cultural facilities contrast with the wit and emotional religiosity that continue to be part of the landscape. Despite everything, when one leaves the large urban centers, the panorama becomes more desolate, and it is observed that alongside the turbo Andalusia there is another emptied Andalusia. But the region has stopped expelling immigrants and now welcomes them; in Granada, the taxi driver who picks me up at the airport was born in Prat de Llobregat (and is a Barça fan). His grandparents fled hunger, but he and his family have returned because in their land of origin they have a better quality of life and the prices are more affordable than in Catalonia.Immigration, before and now

Andalusia is the most populous autonomous community (8,700,000 inhabitants), but it has a density of 100 inhabitants per square kilometer; in Catalonia it is more than double (256). Immigration is 10%, compared to 18% in Catalonia. But Vox has made a flag of it: it only talks about this, repeatedly. And it seems it will serve him to hold the key to governability if Moreno does not reach the 55 deputies that mark the limit of the absolute majority.

In Priego de Córdoba, very close to the birthplace of Alcalá-Zamora, Santiago Abascal rails against foreigners who rape and murder. Afterwards, he takes photos with his followers, all wearing the little Spanish flag bracelet; however, they are not postcard fascists, but quite normal people, families. Vox is normal. But very close to there, in La Carlota, a small town surrounded by olive groves, a retired farmer tells me that young people cannot endure the harshness of the countryside and that without immigrants there would be no harvest. This good man recalls that as a child he had neither running water nor electricity. His cousins moved to Badalona and Granollers. “And I would have left too, if I had been born a few years earlier –he adds–. But things improved from the eighties onwards.”

Moreno Bonilla fears having to govern with Vox, he does not want what happened to his counterparts in Aragon and Extremadura to happen to him; the territorial alliances of the PP with the far-right are his Achilles' heel and the PSOE's great argument. Perhaps that is why Juanma is trying to appropriate Andalusianism, he barely speaks of general politics and has coincided very little with Feijóo. Just the opposite of his socialist rivals. Despite the strong rejection generated by the Spanish government's management (with 22% approval, compared to the 47% received by the Junta), María Jesús Montero has no choice but to rely on Pedro Sánchez.

The Andalusian PSOE, which has a strong personality of its own, sees Marisú as a parachutist without a family of her own and loyal only to Sánchez. On the socialist posters, only "Public Health" can be read, obsessively, because the great slip-up of Moreno's government was the screening of breast cancers that have affected thousands of patients. On the other hand, Montero herself is a doctor and was Minister of Health in better times for her party. But on the outskirts of Granada, in a modest pavilion, the dancing and the shouts of the former minister, and the music of Fuel Fandango and Estopa at full volume, can barely hide the sad atmosphere of the public. "We are more!", exclaims Montero with her Sevillian accent. Because, effectively, one of the PSOE's great enemies is the abstention of resigned or complacent voters, those who "will get up from the sofa on Sunday", as the party's spokesperson, Montse Mínguez (who, on top of that, is Catalan), said with little tact. There is a 10-point difference in turnout between the last regional and the last general elections. That's more than 700,000 votes.No to war

The audience at the socialist rally in Granada applauds Montero but vibrates with Sánchez, who speaks mainly about stopping PP-Vox (he always calls them together) and about his commitment to world peace, to put Spain "on the right side of history". The pavilion shouts "No to war!" But here the battle is another, and it seems that the PSOE has lost it; on election night, Montero will feign euphoria if Juanma loses the absolute majority, but the truth is that the numerical distance between the two parties is astronomical, and Andalusia is a decisive territory for forming majorities in the State as a whole. If Montero does not reach the 30 seats of 2022 (the worst result in the history of the Andalusian PSOE), Sánchez will be touched.

The only remaining unknown is whether the Andalusian left (Endavant Andalusia) will achieve the sorpasso over the hasty coalition between IU, Sumar, and Podem (Per Andalusia). If that were the case, the pattern seen in other territories would be repeated, where the identity left (BNG, Compromís, Chunta) imposes itself on the Spanish alternative left. A good excuse to once again hear Gabriel Rufián's laments about the disunity of the space to the left of the PSOE.

And Monday will be another day, a wonderful spring day, which is when Andalusia is most beautiful, just before the torrid temperatures arrive that always remind Andalusians that the sun is a blessing (the region is a leader in photovoltaic and renewable energy) but also a permanent warning of the great challenge that climate change will pose.Surely Moreno Bonilla will have a good nap, because the campaign has been long and the candidate has chronic insomnia (which he combats with a smart-ring on his left index finger). Afterwards, if the results are as he expects, he will have four more years of presidency... And there are already spin doctors in Madrid who are thinking of him, if Feijóo fails. A new Bismarck for Spain, as Don Niceto would say.