The PP of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla has achieved that Andalusian voters have granted him an absolute majority in the Parliament of the most populous autonomous community in Spain for the first time. This PP came to power, almost four years ago, after a bad electoral result thanks to a government coalition with Ciudadanos, which won 21 deputies and, for the first time in the recovered democracy, the parliamentary support of Vox. This Sunday, Moreno absorbed the 21 deputies of Albert Rivera’s party, with whom he has governed without confrontation or shrillness, and only gave Vox oxygen to add two seats when he had everything in his favor, the social unrest due to inflation, the push of the polls and a candidate promoted for months from the Congress of Deputies. Moreno Bonilla’s formula, which inspires and is inspired by the PP of Núñez Feijóo, has been shown to be more effective than the outbursts of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, giving scope to the ideas and forms of Vox to confront the left. Moreno has ignored Vox, he has seduced the voters of the PP and the PSOE who went to Ciudadanos in the worst of the financial crisis and has not frightened center-left voters. This seems to be the formula that can free the PP from the populism of Vox and open the doors of Moncloa without worrying its European partners.
The first absolute majority of the PP in Andalusia has also been based on the decline of the left as a whole. PP and Vox now have a minimum of 12 more deputies than they had with Ciudadanos in the previous legislature. The PSOE has only yielded three, in what is not a catastrophe but a disaster. The Juan Espadas project has not had time to leave behind the quarrels with Susana Díaz and has suffered from its excessive dependence on Ferraz. To his left, the situation has indeed been catastrophic. The two candidacies that emerged from what had been the United We Can space have yielded 10 seats. The lesson is clear: when politicians dedicate themselves to talking about themselves and their problems and ignore the people and their problems, the debacle is assured by very fair ideas that are defended.
We will see how Moreno Bonilla manages this historic absolute majority. If he does like Aznar in 2000 or Rajoy in 2012 and turns his moderation into a steamroller of everything that smacks of defending the welfare state or protecting civil rights, then he will pay for it in the next calls. But this 19-J offers Alberto Núñez Feijóo the opportunity to present himself as a moderate alternative to the disorder of the current Government of Pedro Sánchez. And for this, the first thing would be to give support in what may be essential for the proper functioning of the institutions, the administration of the economy in the midst of war with Russia or the use of European aid that, in the coming months, will be more conditioned to making internal adjustments. This Feijóo commitment will only be possible if Pedro Sánchez changes his skin again. Nobody doubts that, being what he is, he will not do what many would do today in his place and it is to be expected that he will exhaust the legislature at any cost. It only remains to ask him not to take the country ahead in that effort. Continuing to fuel the brawls between your party and United We Can and the anodyne debates within this political space is unacceptable with a war underway, galloping inflation and a European program to save Spain’s public debt that will have to be supported with reforms of draft.