This weekend has been the first of the Andalusian campaign for regional elections on the 19th. Elections in which the leaders of the national parties are going to turn their backs, because the result will have an important influence on the electoral cycle that begins now, with the municipal elections and in most of the autonomies in May 2023, and the general elections probably at the end of the year if Pedro Sánchez does not advance them.
In Andalusia, things are quite clear. All the polls give the PP a wide victory, without reaching an absolute majority, so the main unknown is whether it will agree with Vox – a possible third force – to govern or will try it alone, as the president and popular candidate, Juan Manuel, has been repeating. Dark. The PP has opted for a moderate and calm policy, centered on Andalusia, which has made it easier for him to expand his electorate even among former PSOE voters -10%, according to the polls-, in contrast to the shrillness and the constant harassment of Sánchez of the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso.
This policy is reflected in the relationship with Vox. Moreno, despite having governed with the foreign support of the extreme right, does not want to agree with Abascal’s party, as the PP of Castilla y León did, and even assures that, if Vox demands to enter the Junta, would call new elections. But this warning is not credible, and that is why it is imperative to clarify in Andalusia and also for the next general elections the PP-Vox relationship, now marked by the government pact in Castilla y León. Moreno would like to be invested with the abstention of Vox if it exceeds in seats, as the polls predict, the entire left, but, if it needs the extreme right to govern, it should apply the cordon sanitaire to isolate the ultra party, as it happens in the democratic countries around us.
In this sense, the PSOE, probably the second force in the Andalusian Parliament, also faces the responsibility of Let The Winner Rule, what would be achieved with his abstention, an exit that the socialists rejected in Castilla y León by conditioning it on the PP breaking all its pacts with Vox. consider that The PSOE indirectly benefits from a PP-Vox pact to wear down and discredit Alberto Núñez Feijóo is a mistake. The cordon sanitaire materializes in Europe not only excluding any pact with the extreme right, but also facilitating the governability of the winner of the elections to leave the ultras out of the game. It is so irresponsible to govern with the extreme right like waiting for the adversary to do it to collect the revenues.
This is the real dilemma posed by these elections if the predictions come true. The PSOE would be satisfied if it retains the 33 seats it now has, which helped it win in 2018 even though it could not govern, and that largely depends on the mobilization of its electorate. Citizens debate between get a minimum of seats or disappear of the Andalusian Parliament, while everything indicates that the left will go backwards due to its division – the previous head of the Podemos list, Teresa Rodríguez, appears alone with an Andalusian program – and due to the difficulties encountered in reaching an in extremis pact between the parties which represent the new space headed by Vice President Yolanda Díaz, that can debut in Andalusia with a bad result.