Pedro Sánchez this Saturday kicked off the PSOE’s election campaign in Seville, the Socialists’ great bastion of municipal power, justifying central government management as a guarantor of the rights of the majority of people. . “Are there differences between right-handed and left-handed? Well, they are,” the president said, before confronting the PP’s economic model, which has been implemented by the coalition executive during pandemic and war crises.
Depending on the appointments that the year will bring, the leader of the Socialists directly appealed to the broad social majority, whom he assured that the measures taken by the Council of Ministers in matters of pensions, labor rights or protection. working classes. “Citizens are encouraged to choose an option. It matters less what we voted for one, two or three years. The main thing is to answer which city and which country we want: do we want a country where the minimum wage will increase or is frozen? Do we want a country where pensions are revalued according to the CPI or where they increase by 0.25% as has happened in the past? Do we want a country where coexistence reigns or territorial confrontation?
Sánchez assured that the executive roadmap will not change as it is an election year. “We are going to do the same as we did in the non-election years, continue decent pensions, the minimum wage, protect citizens from the economic consequences of war,” he promised before attacking the PP. The attitude displayed during the Legislature’s greatest challenges. “In these four years, we have done nothing but navigate against storms: pandemic, war, volcano. We did this in the face of the opposition, which used this storm to sink the government, even if Spain sank for it.
In his speech, the President of the Government ignored the announcement by the Vice President of Castilla da Leon that women who decide to voluntarily terminate their pregnancy will be offered to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus and a 4D ultrasound as a preventive measure. Sánchez referred to a “coalition of fear between PP and VOX” and warned that “the right knows which path they have taken and that is what the extreme right represents for them”, referring to their alliance. Feijo with Santiago Abascal’s Ultra party. And launched an ad: “With socialist governments, what will be the gains in favor of women, not one set back. We are not going to back down.”
Sevilla, PSOE’s municipal stronghold
The PSOE has chosen Seville to launch its election campaign for municipal elections in May, which will inevitably coincide with a long general election campaign scheduled for later in the year. There are two considerations for the choice of the capital of Andalusia: Seville is the most populous city in Spain, governed by the PSOE, since 2015. It is also the province with the largest power differential with the PP, which only holds eight seats. 106 municipalities. Socialists have 72 mayors, 66.98% of the total number.
Therefore, Seville has a specific weight in municipalism in Spain, but also a symbolic weight for the PSOE, as it is the country with the most militants. Until recently, it was also recognized as the most muscular and electorally active group in Spain, the birthplace of Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra and the birthplace of the last three Andalusian presidents: Manuel Chávez, José Antonio Griñán and Susana Díaz.
The federal and Andalusian leadership has always sought here the image of a tense party, of mobilized bases, in order to transmit this energy to the rest of Spain. The reverse of this photo is the Andalusian elections last June, where Juan Manuel Moreno’s PP managed to topple the great socialist bastion in the votes for the first time. The PSOE won 123,933 votes in the 2019 municipal elections in the capital city of Seville, 32.65% of the vote; Among Andalusians, it fell to 81,800 votes, 19.83%.
Antonio Muñoz, the “charming” mayor of Seville
Antonio Muñoz, the mayor of Seville who inherited the position of Swords, took the stage to the chords of the British band The Smiths The charming man (The charming man) his favorite. Muñoz has a modern profile, atypical for a Seville mayoral candidate.
The numbers that the party manages for its candidate are “optimistic”, but in the scenario of a bloc battle, the Socialists are very worried about the identity crisis and the conflicts that divide the parties to their left (IU, Podemos, Adelante). at the expense of the coalition and the candidate’s pact.
That same week, the mayor struck a deal with Ciudadanos – the doomed party – to approve the municipal budget for this year. The pact has a lot of political weight five months before the elections. With the reports approved, Muñoz could promote concrete city projects in the coming weeks that involve managing the budget, not just campaign promises. “The suffering face left by the PP candidate,” he said, referring to Jose Luis Sanz.
It was also the first high-level meeting that Muñoz held and shared the bill with Sánchez. The president of the government dedicated emotional words to him: “They conveyed to me the statement you made: Sevilla made me a better person. I think I’ve rarely heard a better declaration of love and loyalty, I’m sure we’ll have you back in May from the people of Seville.”
In a cheerful and vindictive tone, Muñoz took the time to talk about the neighborhoods of the city, future projects – especially in terms of mobility – and the projection of Seville in the country as a whole: “We have to play a more important role. In the National Council, we can’t just be the city below Despenaperro, where they come to have fun, Because we are a happy city,” he said.
The meeting was held at the Navigation Pavilion on Isla de la Cartuja, the former site of Expo 92, where Muñoz maintained that Seville has “the best technology park in Andalucia” – in secret competition with Malaga. As a personal bet, the mayor insisted that he would not give up on the Andalusian parliament “approving capital law” for Seville. Muñoz closed his speech with a poisoned arrow to the PP’s rivals: “This is not the time for sadness, snobbery or witchcraft.”
Juan Espadas, General Secretary of the Andalusian PSOE and former mayor of Seville, opened and led the rally, giving way to the mayors of Osuna and Alcalá de Guadaira, the provincial party leader and his successor in Seville’s city council.
Espadas believes that Muñoz’s candidacy “is the culmination” of his own project, which he left in the hands of the Andalusian electoral poster and the PSOE-A leadership against Susana Díaz in the controversial June 19 with disastrous results. “It’s easier. Today we are not presenting a candidate, but a mayor,” he warned, after predicting that Seville’s PSOE would “once again break the record of three consecutive terms”, giving a kiss to the man who still owns the bar, the former mayor. Alfredo Sánchez Montesirin (1999-2011).
Source: El Diario
