Alberto Núñez Feijóo will roll up his sleeves in the Andalusian campaign to help Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla renew an absolute majority that is hanging by a thread. The leader of the PP will have a strong presence in Andalusia in the coming weeks, and he will do so with his own agenda, parallel to the electoral caravan of the president of the Junta, with whom he will normally not coincide, except for exceptions. It is a “fan-shaped” deployment strategy, explained by the popular leader’s office, according to which each leader is simultaneously in different places “to cover more territory.” Feijóo lands this weekend in the Andalusian pre-campaign with events in Seville and Córdoba.
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The PP leader will travel this Saturday to Seville to attend the Copa del Rey final, and on Sunday to Córdoba to close a meeting of mayors together with Moreno Bonilla. The one in Córdoba will be the first joint event of Feijóo and the Andalusian president, since afterwards, in the middle of the campaign (which starts on May 1), it will be normal for them not to coincide.
Feijóo will star in five or six events in Andalusia during the campaign, his direct team explains. Along with the pre-campaign, the PP leader will seek to visit the eight Andalusian provinces. The fan strategy is a classic of the current PP team, which believes it is better to separate the leader from the candidate to reach more places and have more media impact in local media. Génova does not plan to send the popular deputy secretaries to Andalusia. The strategy coordinated with the Andalusian PP aims to give maximum prominence to Juan Manuel Moreno and reduce the presence of the national leadership to reinforce the candidate’s autonomous profile.
The PP leader is, for now, the only national leader confirmed in Moreno Bonilla’s campaign, which has planned a caravan in an “Andalusian key and with minimal presence of leaders from outside,” according to the Andalusian PP, which implies dispensing with figures such as former Prime Ministers José María Aznar and Mariano Rajoy. Aznar’s more ideological profile linked to the Iraq war could distort Moreno Bonilla’s moderate style, while Rajoy faces the trial in April of the Kitchen case that nested in his Ministry of the Interior, a judicial process that worries the PP.
Also up in the air is the participation of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who was in the last Andalusian campaign in 2022, with events in places where Vox was strong. Now, the president of Madrid has planned a trip to Mexico that coincides with much of the Andalusian campaign, her team explains, although she remains “at the disposal” of the Andalusian PP in case she is required. So far she has not received any request.
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In the last elections, those of 2022, with Feijóo newly arrived at the presidency of the PP, the popular leader participated in six events of the Andalusian campaign, with the striking exception of the closing, from which he was absent to leave all the prominence to Juan Manuel Moreno.
Four years later, the Andalusian PP replicates the territory-based campaign model with the exception of the national leader, who in any case will also separate himself in the events so as not to overshadow the candidate.
The popular party has now lowered expectations for the elections on May 17. Behind closed doors, in a meeting held this Tuesday in Congress, Alberto Núñez Feijóo told his deputies and senators that the absolute majority in Andalusia is not guaranteed. “Absolute majorities are very complicated,” he warned them, and argued that the distribution of the remaining votes in the eight Andalusian provinces could result in Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla’s PP losing the unbound governability it currently enjoys by just a few votes. Hence the campaign is measured to the millimeter and full autonomy has been given to the Andalusian PP, which prefers to avoid national interference as much as possible.
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