The Andalusian left says it perceives a change in the mood of the progressive electorate and faces the campaign for May 17 with an optimistic discourse. Antonio Maíllo, the candidate for the Junta of the Por Andalucía coalition, set the goal this Monday of achieving up to 10 deputies in the next Parliament. In 2022, he obtained five. “We are betting on doubling results. We are not here to survive, but to go all out,” he assured. In an informative breakfast organized by the New Economy Forum, the also federal coordinator of IU defended his party’s proposals for these elections; he distinguished himself from the PSOE, a partner in the central government on issues such as housing; and he vindicated the pact reached to run with seven parties in the elections and not further fragment the vote.
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In a gesture to show unity with Podemos, which joined the candidacy on the last day of the deadline, its regional coordinator, Raquel Martínez, was in charge of introducing Maíllo. The leader, from the internal current that defended the agreement over the last year, justified her presence at the event: “We have a shared responsibility, that concessions and renunciations serve to achieve change in Andalusia and at the same time be an impulse to stop barbarism in the rest of Spain.” Podemos, which changed strategy after the last setback in Castilla y León, criticized after the signing that the agreement did not recognize its real political weight (it has one for Jaén and two for Seville and Málaga); and the one who had been chosen in primaries as a candidate for the presidency of the Junta, Juan Antonio Delgado, decided to join the lists as number six for Cádiz, a purely symbolic position. “Raquel has been very consistent in defending her political theses, which have prevailed,” Maíllo acknowledged. “This agreement has been applauded by civil society, the voter. People don’t want complications. We have sacrificed in favor of an instrument that favors the popular mandate. Not a mandate from each part,” he pointed out.
The candidate has strived to identify his as the “ballot of the Andalusian left,” ignoring Adelante Andalucía, the party created by Teresa Rodríguez and which some polls even place above the coalition. “If the numbers give us, we govern, we want to transform. Knowing the wear and tear that entails,” he stressed to differentiate himself from José Ignacio García, Adelante’s aspirant, who in 2020 left Podemos when he opposed entering a coalition with the PSOE. Maíllo assured that he neither fears nor thinks about the sorpasso of the Andalusian formation, but rather focuses on doing better than “PP and Vox.” Regarding the division of the space, the head of the list for Seville downplayed it. “Zero drama with this, because in other periods of history there was IU and there was the Andalusian Party. Nothing happened, there were different projects. The agreement demonstrates a turning point in Spanish politics.” In 2018, united, the candidacy led by Rodríguez achieved 17 seats and 16.2% of the vote.
For Maíllo, “a good result [on May 17] will reinforce that the path started in Andalusia is ratified in the rest of the State.” The breakfast was organized a day after the presentation event in Seville of the project for the general elections of IU, Comunes, Más Madrid and Movimiento Sumar, in which ministers Pablo Bustinduy, Mónica García and Ernest Urtasun backed the candidate. “If Sumar is not in the Government, there is neither recognition of the Palestinian State nor a prohibition of the use of bases. Pedro Sánchez’s result [as a leader recognized by other progressive executives] is our policies,” Maíllo defended, who also sought to differentiate himself from his partner without mentioning (not even this Monday) María Jesús Montero, the former first vice-president and socialist aspirant.
“We are a coherent left-wing project. What we say in the campaign, we will do afterwards. The PSOE says a lot in the campaign and then their legs tremble,” he slipped against the party, which he also questioned for its positions on housing a week before the decree extending rents is voted on, doomed to failure due to the rejection of PP and Junts. “Negotiations continue, even if it doesn’t seem so,” he assured, not wanting to give up the vote after Yolanda Díaz last week called Carles Puigdemont’s party “racist and classist.” On a national level, Maíllo also assured that Sumar will ensure that the Government of Spain recognizes the rights of the Sahrawi people. A promise that, for now, distances him greatly from the position maintained by the socialists after the Executive’s shift in March 2022.
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