Four weeks before the election, the Sumar parties in the Government and up to three of its ministers —Mónica García, Ernest Urtasun, and Pablo Bustinduy— went all out this Sunday to support the candidate for the Junta de Por Andalucía, Antonio Maíllo. Before some 450 devoted supporters, who chanted “Moreno Bonilla, out of Seville” at the end of the event before singing the Andalusian anthem, the rally served the left-wing coalition to burst into the pre-campaign, with the defense of the extension of rental contracts and the care of public services as their banners. But also to assert their role in the Executive they share with the PSOE just one day after the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, projected himself as a reference for the international left with a very powerful image alongside Brazil’s Lula da Silva at a summit that sought to confront ultra-conservative postulates. “We are proud that progressive ideas are today illuminating the world, which have not come from Ferraz, they have come from you, from the transformative left,” replied the Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García. “It’s all very well to say in a forum in Barcelona: ‘We are going to intervene in the housing market,’ and then you fight with Bustinduy,” Maíllo himself countered the president’s speech.
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“With great honor, Spain is the voice of justice, coherence, and decency in this world in flames. If Spain is the only country that has approved an embargo law against Israel, it is because people have shouted in the streets ‘Long live free Palestine!’ and we have fought for it within the Government,” stressed the Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, before also referring to other achievements he attributes to Sumar’s position, such as imposing staying out of the 5% defense spending required by NATO, labor reform, the increase in pensions, the rise in the minimum vital income, the recovery of universal healthcare, or the extraordinary regularization of immigrants approved on Tuesday by the Council of Ministers.
“360,000 Andalusians will have their contracts expire this year or next. I tell Moreno that someone who loves their land does not kick people out of their homes,” Bustinduy criticized, referring to the vote on the decree for the extension of rental agreements on the 28th in Congress, which lacks the necessary support due to the refusal of the PP and also Junts.
On this matter, the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, also appealed to the Andalusian president: “What will the 25 deputies that Mr. Moreno Bonilla has in the Congress of Deputies vote?” Urtasun, a member of the Comunes and spokesperson for Movimiento Sumar, boasted about having signed this week from his department the extinction of the Francisco Franco Foundation, another mention that brought the attendees who packed the auditorium (albeit of modest dimensions) at the Cartuja Center (Seville) to their feet.
The staging of the event, convened under the slogan “A step forward for Andalusia” and which was a priori the second presentation of the project towards the general elections, was heavily focused on the local brand and had Maíllo as the main protagonist. “Moreno Bonilla and Vox are indistinguishable,” declared a list leader and federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida, who accused the PP of being “classist” and “despising the people,” but did not allude at any point to the PSOE candidate, María Jesús Montero.
With the breast cancer screening crisis (“Are we going to vote for Moreno Bonilla so that we still don’t know the truth that Amama has denounced?” Maíllo asked), and the denunciation of the deterioration of Andalusian healthcare present in all interventions, the IU leader called for mobilization on May 17. “It can be done, we can change the history of Andalusia. We are going to show that Andalusia always changes the script. We are proudly the Andalusian left, we are people who fight and who do not feel defeated,” he asserted against the other ballot to the left of the PSOE, that of Adelante Andalucía, the party founded by Teresa Rodríguez. “We are going to make May 2026 a July 2023,” he stated at another point in the speech that closed the event.
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Earlier, both the group’s spokesperson this legislature, Inma Nieto, and the candidate for Cádiz, Esperanza Gómez, from Movimiento Sumar, called to “fill” the ballot boxes with votes for Por Andalucía without sparing criticism of the PP.
It was the Minister of Culture who recalled some verses from Carlos Cano’s song La Murga de los currelantes, to summarize what voters “want”: “Dreaming of the future of Andalusia, unemployment ends and there is work, free school, medicine and hospital, may bread and joy never be lacking, may emigrants return soon, may there be culture and prosperity.”
Road to the general elections
The Sumar parties in the Government arrived at this presentation with more certainties than at the Madrid launch on February 21, but with much still to do. Vice President Yolanda Díaz has already ruled herself out as the future leader of the space. But there is no chosen brand or clear substitute. On stage, several names that have been mentioned in recent weeks: from Pablo Bustinduy, who has always ruled himself out; to Urtasun, who has played an increasingly prominent role in negotiations with the PSOE within the Government; García, although in principle her party would be considering the option of her repeating on the lists for the Madrid Assembly; or Maíllo himself, who has a crucial first test in this May event before considering any future options.
The event is also being held while Podemos, which has agreed to join Por Andalucía at the deadline but remains outside the general election process, is taking steps in its electoral race. Urtasun expressly thanked them for joining the coalition. “They have allowed us to build a unity candidacy. Citizens want us united. Well, here is a candidacy called Por Andalucía in which we are working together,” he said.
Although Ione Belarra’s party has been severely affected by setbacks in Aragon and Castilla y León, its MEP Irene Montero, slated to head the list for the 2027 elections, has positioned herself alongside the ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, and this Thursday showed rapport with former Valencian vice president Mónica Oltra, at an event also attended by IU minister, Sira Rego, and Brazilian first lady, Janja Lula da Silva, in Valencia.
