Luis Uruñuela would not have been surprised to read the obituary of his deputy mayor, Antonio Rodríguez Almodóvar. He told me and repeated to me: “He is not a bad person, but he has little kittens in his belly that do not let him digest not seeing himself as mayor. He cannot conceive that his all-powerful PSOE handed over to the Andalusianists nothing less than the mayoralty of the capital of Andalusia. And his revenge is to bother me, day by day, to remind me of it. Despite everything, he is valuable and I appreciate him.” This was Mayor Uruñuela. Sharp in analysis, fair in his attitude, and always a gentleman in the most human sense of the word.
What Luis could not imagine is that Antonio’s indigestion would last half a century.
Strange obituary of this socialist, in which he talks about himself more than about Mayor Uruñuela himself and who cites me again and again, insulting our extinct Andalusian Party and me, with the usual aversion, without the slightest respect for our mourning. Once again, through his mouth in this case, the PSOE continues to be harsh with the Andalusianists, without adhering to historical truth, falsifying it to their benefit.
This was the reality. First: socialists and Andalusianists obtained the same number of councilors in Seville and Granada. Second: In the negotiation of the mayoralties with the communists, both socialists and Andalusianists gave priority to Seville, as it was the capital, as all political parties would have done in all communities. Third: Thanks to the communists’ stance, the Andalusianists obtained the mayoralty.
With these facts, is it reasonable for Rodríguez Almodóvar to say that “the Andalusianists sold their soul” in Granada and not say that the socialists sold theirs in Seville? No, no one sold their soul, no one handed over Seville, no one handed over Granada, because you cannot hand over what you do not have. There had to be a pact and it was honorably made. Choosing the capital is logical and no one can feel offended. Another thing is that someone lies, distorts, and that lie, when spread by the powerful, becomes truth and that is why the well-meaning offended arise, perversely deceived, among whom there were quite a few Andalusianist voters. Pure truth.
This practice is common in the PSOE, sectarian by nature, which not only wants to be the winner but the only one. In my long political life, under the dictatorship and in democracy, I have been outraged by their falsehoods against the communists of the great Santiago Carrillo, against the UCD of the great Adolfo Suarez, heirs, in turn, of their falsehoods both in the Primo de Rivera dictatorship and in the Second Republic. And I could elaborate by recounting their falsehoods against the Andalusian Party, which, being an example in the fight against the dictatorship hand in hand with the PC, while the PSOE was absent, and being the determining factor of Andalusia’s full autonomy, loved by no one and blocked by all, fell politically executed by the lies fabricated by the PSOE and turned into truths, thanks to its immense political and economic power.
On the other hand, in the obituary, Rodríguez Almodóvar’s obsession with pushing Mayor Uruñuela, the Andalusian Party, and me to the right, all three at once, stands out. As far as I am concerned, I did not know that Franco put right-wingers in jail, exiled us, and locked us in dungeons, as he did with me. Strange, isn’t it? But it does not surprise me coming from a socialist. Already under the dictatorship, I remember how Felipe González wanted to pull me out of the left by pushing me to the right and, “without acrimony,” he told me “Alejandro, you have to understand that I am a worker and you are a gentleman.”
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I never cared that my privileged class origin was held against me, because at 18 years old, consciously, I chose to shed my class. But it is still funny that the worker González has mutated into millionaire González at the service of the multimillionaire Slim and today is the most useful defender of the political right in this country, which makes the socialist base cry. Felipe has done the same as I, shed his class. But in the opposite direction.
I get to the heart of the matter. I am proud to have led the pact with the PSOE to form a coalition government in the Junta of Andalusia. And I feel proud to have led the pact with the PP to form a coalition government in the Seville City Council.
I distrust ideological mutations, but I applaud transversal political pacts. Politics is about meeting, not confrontation, although this sounds strange today in the world, in Spain, and in Andalusia. Without transversality, neither Spain would have conquered democracy, nor Andalusia full autonomy. And I am proud to have participated in one, hand in hand with Santiago Carrillo of the PC in the Democratic Junta (1973) and in the other, hand in hand, with Adolfo Suarez of the UCD in the Congress of Deputies (1980).
Rodríguez Almodóvar, out of nowhere, cites Escuredo, saying that he “took the flag of Andalusia from me.” Apart from the fact that our flag is neither taken nor put, because it is the symbol of the Andalusian people that one carries or not in the soul, I think Rodríguez Almodóvar does a disservice to his colleague Escuredo, because he forces me to remember that the PSOE abandoned that flag that Escuredo threw away badly, when, secretly and without a word, he abandoned the Presidency of the Junta, under suspicion of corruption, secretly denounced by the PSOE itself and publicly by the newspaper EL PAÍS on February 8, 1984.
At a good time, these controversies arise that put everyone in their place. Mayor Uruñuela himself would not have let Rodríguez Almodóvar’s fragile obituary pass and would have replied and denied it, in defense of the memory of his Andalusian Party, to which Andalusia owes, among many other things, its full autonomy.
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