After a week of testing his popular appeal during his visits to the April Fair in Seville and the Andújar pilgrimage in Jaén —selfies and hugs with citizens and their displays of affection are the best poll, his closest collaborators assure, satisfied—, the president of the Junta and PP candidate for re-election, Juan Manuel Moreno, was to regain his more institutional facet this Monday with the presentation of his electoral program.
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But throughout his speech, he barely advanced concrete measures from a battery of more than 1,900 government proposals. Beyond confirming that taxes will continue to be lowered, the Andalusian leader dedicated himself to praising the achievements, especially in economic matters, of his seven years and three months at the head of the Andalusian Executive and to asking Pedro Sánchez to sit down with the unions to end the doctors’ strike. “It’s very easy to give lessons when not even the Government itself, with the few competencies it has in health matters, which is that statute of health professionals, is capable after months of reaching an agreement,” said the Andalusian president.
Moreno began by warning that his program, which “is not electoral, but governmental” —”because we base ourselves on what we have already done and have experience”— is “sound and coherent” and does not intend to generate “false expectations” among citizens.
The popular candidate joked with those attending the event —his counselors, most of the candidates, mayors, and representatives of business and social associations and platforms—, taking for granted that they were not very interested in him detailing the 1900 measures contained in more than 400 pages, and perhaps for this reason the summary was so succinct that he barely made any announcements. In fact, of the four axes into which they are divided: growth for more opportunities; caring for families and people; Andalusia prepared for current challenges and Andalusia as a protagonist of Spain and Europe, he said nothing about the last two, although they served to highlight how the region he leads has ceased to be perceived as a “subsidized community,” linked to “the stigma of corruption and unemployment.”
Where the Andalusian president dwelled most was on the first of the axes, the one with purely economic content, which served him to boast about employment figures. Moreno announced that in the next legislature, the digitalization of industry will be incentivized by dedicating 2% of the regional GDP to R&D&I, “to place us at the forefront of the most research-intensive communities in Spain and the EU,” that work will continue on the construction of infrastructures to end the public deficit, and that taxes will continue to be lowered. Moreno confirmed the bonus on inheritance and gift tax in housing transfers between siblings, which he announced two weeks ago, confirmed that it will be extended to other family members, and that new tax reductions will be approved, although he did not specify which ones.
So far, the most concrete aspects of Moreno’s electoral program. In his second axis, related to families and people and amidst the debate on the “national priority” agreed upon by the PP and Vox, the popular leader said “that priorities are none other than people.” “There are many types of families; it is the architectural unit of our society. We must protect the family, people,” the popular candidate maintained. “Now that there is so much talk about priorities, priorities are none other than people. We have the obligation to put people at the center of political action,” he concluded, in a veiled allusion to the principle incorporated in Aragon and Extremadura into agreements with the far-right. And which have generated noise and internal division.
Afterward, the popular leader directly attacked the President of the Government over the doctors’ strike which, he assured, has caused more than 700,000 medical procedures to be left undone in Andalusia, with an impact of 100 million euros. “From here, I urge him immediately to sit down, negotiate, and end this situation that causes so much harm to our healthcare system and for which we then have to face the consequences because citizens evidently are not there to know whose responsibility it is. But if there is a responsibility, it lies with whoever lacks the capacity for dialogue or the political will to sit down and negotiate to end a strike that is doing so much damage to our healthcare.”
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He then alluded to housing, pointing out that it is a problem across Europe and that he intends, based on the Andalusian housing law approved this legislature, “to work with the sector to be able to carry out many developments.”
Moreno does not hide that healthcare has been the main blemish on a service record that has spanned two very placid legislatures, and he has also acknowledged that the screening fiasco, the tip of the iceberg of healthcare management in which he has not quite found the key to ending the collapse in primary care or out-of-control waiting lists, has been his biggest crisis in his seven years as president of the Andalusian Government. It was after the complaints from women victims of delays in breast cancer diagnoses that the president recognized that the functioning of the Andalusian Health Service needed to be changed, due to having a structure anchored in the past. There was anticipation about how Moreno would address this transformation, considering that healthcare is one of the axes on which the opposition will pivot its attacks on his management, but we will have to wait to read the complete document on the party’s website, because in his speech, the popular leader said nothing more.
Perhaps because it is one of the measures that may vary, because Moreno’s electoral program is not unchangeable. The president has indicated that he hopes to adapt or reform it based on the proposals and suggestions submitted by the organizations and platforms present at the event.
Juanma above the PP
For the conservative party, the best endorsement of that program is the candidate and his own brand, the Juanma brand, much more valued than that of his party, something that already worked for him in 2022 and that his campaign team will exploit to revalidate an absolute majority that he is close to in all polls. And this Monday’s staging is the main demonstration of the commitment to that strategy: behind the candidate, a large green sign, degrading to popular blue, with the inscription Electoral Program 2026, above Juanma’s name and signature, without any PP logo. A banner flanked by four other hangings with the words stability, trust, future, and security – these, yes, with the party’s acronym, but in much smaller letters than those four terms, which are what Moreno has been reiterating these weeks in opposition to the “mess” that depending on Vox to govern would entail.
And on those four words, Moreno did stop to once again call on his supporters not to be overconfident on May 17 and to be able to revalidate a majority that would not make them dependent on Vox. Moreno did not mention the far-right party, but he did refer to the setback his Government suffered when, during the first legislature, the land reform law, agreed upon with Vox, could not go ahead because Santiago Abascal decided to break all agreements with the PP over the reception of migrant minors. “Depending on the voluntary and capricious decision of a person who is more than 500 kilometers from here and who does not know the social and economic reality of Andalusia is something very expensive for all Andalusians,” Moreno warned, very uncomfortable with the agreements with the far-right party in Extremadura and Aragon, which he also does not share.
“Security, trust, and stability project us towards the future,” the popular candidate wove together those four concepts. “The question we all have to ask ourselves now is: are we willing to lose trust, stability, security? On May 17, you all have a magnificent opportunity to confirm that we do not want to lose them,” Moreno concluded.
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