At eight in the afternoon of this July 18, in Córdoba the thermometers mark 40 degrees. In the shade, because in full sun the mercury shoots up even more. Few are the daring who dare to challenge the umpteenth heat wave that, if we compare it with an earthquake, has its epicenter in the Cordoba capital, although the aftershocks are felt throughout the Guadalquivir Valley. But you don't need to look out into the ghost streets of Córdoba to start sweating, just take a look at the alert maps of the Spanish Meteorological Agency (Aemet) for hot flashes to appear.

Córdoba has not stopped being red or orange (and it has no political connotation, only meteorological) since the electoral campaign began and asking ordinary citizens to vote has become here, as in other parts of Andalusia, a whole challenge. Nothing to do with the campaign of the last municipal elections, and that already in May in Córdoba the sun is pressing. Not to mention that a good part of the population literally flees to the coast of Malaga.

The 40 degrees of Córdoba at eight in the afternoon are transformed into a much more bearable 30 degrees in Fuengirola, the tourist enclave of the Costa del Sol where the accent that is most heard is that of the Caliphate capital. For this reason, the PP of Córdoba has thought of moving at least part of its campaign there where its voters have fled the heat and this Tuesday it has organized a rally with its candidates and main referents in the Plaza Pedro Cuevas de los Boliches.

The idea, explains the president of the Cordovan PP, Adolfo Molina, is that candidates who present themselves in this province move to where their potential voters are and all this in coordination, he emphasizes, with the Popular Party of Malaga, because the campaign is organized in each province the local structure of the party and it is not a question of getting into someone else's campaign. Molina himself participates in the Cordovan/Malaga rally, together with the mayor of Córdoba, José María Bellido, the president of the PP of Málaga, Patricia Navarro and the candidate Ana Mulas.

The heat has forced us to refine electoral strategies and, beyond persecuting the voter to their summer resorts, certain unwritten rules have been imposed but full of common sense. The first, which is shared by all the parties, is that the large electoral acts -already increasingly depleted in number and influx- are not held later than 11 or 12 in the morning (depending on the province and according to the forecast of the day) and not before 9:00 p.m. if it is in the afternoon.

Candidates of the PP of Córdoba distribute propaganda in a market first thing in the morning. PP CORDOBA

In fact, the opening of the Cordovan PP campaign had to wait until nightfall on Thursday the 8th and a place as cool as possible was sought. That has been the norm of the entire campaign, in which, in addition, Molina says, less common tactics have been chosen or to reinforce tools that on other occasions have been marginal. In the Cordovan PP they have put their candidates on the phone to make hundreds of calls, especially to militants who are intended to be mobilized and who, in addition, mobilize their entourage to ward off one of the greatest fears of these elections, that the participation falls on the date chosen for voting and its coincidence with the holidays.

One of the central acts of the PP campaign in Córdoba, the commemoration of the death at the hands of ETA terrorists of councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco, took place in Puente Genil last Thursday and, like the acts of a certain magnitude This campaign was held in a closed and properly air-conditioned area, sheltered from the unbearable heat that is capable of melting the greatest of electoral enthusiasms.

Although in Córdoba the rigors of the heat are felt especially fiercely, the adaptations of the campaign to the thermometer have been the general rule in the Andalusian Popular Party, with very limited rallies and in very specific time slots. Even in the marketing of the campaign, the difference has been noticed and the members of Nuevas Generaciones have spread out on beaches such as those in Cádiz to distribute balls and towels with the party logo and, incidentally, propaganda leaflets asking for the vote for Alberto Núñez Feijóo .

Representatives and interveners

The heat is also making it difficult for the PP to find proxies and auditors for election day. The president of the Junta and the Andalusian PP, Juanma Moreno, warned at the beginning of the campaign and official party sources have confirmed it, although the problem is not insurmountable and they do not believe that they will be absent on July 23. In the PSOE and in Sumar they assure that they do not have this problem.

In the Andalusian PSOE they have followed a very similar pattern. The coordinator of the campaign, Antonio Gutiérrez Limones, sums it up in a few words: “take advantage of the hours” of less heat and “be everywhere”, in all the media, whatever their field, so that the message – basically that the PP and Vox are the same and that a government of the right would be a setback and a reduction of rights- it reaches all voters without them having to leave their refrigerated living room.

Before noon and after nine at night are the periods of the day in which all the events organized outdoors have been set, which have been completed with the deployment of candidates by the media and with a strong commitment to social networks. Without abandoning any corner, Gutiérrez Limones highlights that special attention has been paid to the coastal areas of the community, to which a good part of Andalusians move at this time, as has been done by Sumar, the platform led by Yolanda Díaz and that he has had to modify his campaign, equally, due to the temperatures.

Sumar campaign launch ceremony in Córdoba, held next to the banks of the Guadalquivir and at sunset. EFE

It is no coincidence that the great act of the candidate to be the first president of the Government of Spain was held last weekend at the Cartuja Center in Seville, where more than 2,000 people gathered in the heat of Díaz and the cool of the air-conditioning.

Many of the sectoral meetings, with social or neighborhood groups, have been organized electronically, which has saved the Sumar team travel, has allowed them to occupy the hottest hours and, in many cases, bridge the distance with the representatives of these entities, many of them displaced to their summer resorts.

In Córdoba, to continue with the capital of the Andalusian heat, Sumar also began the campaign with the sun already gone from the horizon, around ten o'clock at night and on the banks of the Guadalquivir river. In Malaga, where the temperatures are much more bearable, that same act took place an hour and a half earlier, a sign that this campaign is not only going for neighborhoods, but above all for thermometers.

The deputy of Podemos in the General Meeting, Covadonga Tomé, will vote this Wednesday in favor of the investiture of Adrián Barbón as president of the Principality, which together with the 19 votes of the socialist deputies and the seats of IU-Call for Asturias (3 ) add up to 23 deputies, the absolute majority in the Asturian Chamber.

With a regulation that only allows to support or abstain when voting for the investiture of the president, if the purple deputy had not supported the socialist candidate, Barbón's re-election would have been delayed until next Friday, in a second vote in which he would only have needed simple majority to get it.

During the session that will conclude with the investiture vote in the early afternoon, the Podemos parliamentarian has been critical of Barbón's attitude, but has argued her support for the need to prevent “the PP from claiming victory for having broken the progressive majority” and that the acting president used the abstention of the purple formation “as an excuse to justify that he is obliged to come to terms with the right”.

The spokeswoman for Podemos at the General Meeting yesterday organized an open assembly and consultation with the militancy to decide on support for the socialist president, in which she was defended by a favorable vote.

The telematic consultation has had the participation of 205 people. Of which, almost 70%, have supported the positive vote. This consultation had to be carried out by enabling means developed by Tomémos Asturies, the citizen platform in support of the purple deputy, after the party's interim leadership refused to carry out a consultation with the bases using the tools that the Organization Secretariat has at its disposal.

In this, Covadonga Tomé stated that “despite the blockades and difficulties, democracy ends up making its way.”

Nacho Martín Blanco (Barcelona, 1982) left his Ciudadanos seat in Parliament, where he was the spokesman for the liberal formation, when just a few weeks ago Alberto Núñez Feijóo called him with the proposal to head the candidacy of the PP in Catalonia. Martín Blanco did not think about it, considering that the popular leader represented the only center-right alternative that can evict sanchismo. Already in the campaign and with polls indicating that he can obtain a great result in Catalonia, he claims firmness before the nationalists but with “polite ways” and demands that the future Government expand the dialogue in Catalonia to constitutionalist parties and associations.

In this struggle between Sánchez and Feijóo, how do you explain that where socialism is going to get the most advantage over the PP is surely in Catalonia? The PSC, with an exercise of considerable cynicism, has managed to blend in with nationalism and among them claim exclusive representation of Catalanness, convincing a part of the Catalans that they are the ones who best defend their interests. But if you analyze the different governments in Spain, you see that Catalonia has always done better when the PP governs. In fact, when the parameters of the dialogue between the Government and the Generalitat with the PSC are established, they are in the key of “what else do we give to the nationalists”, not to the Catalans as a whole. You say that you have always done well with the PP, but the popular ones have always ended up agreeing with nationalism. Do you think that the solution now is the same: seek an understanding of the PP with the so-called moderate nationalism? In other words, the formula of Aznar and Rajoy. I am very clear that the solution to the problems of Catalonia will come from a fluid and constant dialogue between the government of Spain and Catalan society. It is necessary to dialogue with the whole of Catalan society without exclusions, but also, and very especially, with Catalans who also feel Spanish and who feel forgotten. Because the policy of sanchismo has been to give in to nationalism and despise the feelings of a majority of Catalans. It is what is also demanded by the active forces of the Catalan business community, which are often unfairly criticized for their role in the process. unfair? With the exception of José Manuel Lara, José Luis Bonet and some others, the business community remained silent when Artur Mas launched the process, when he did not applaud with his ears and financed the coup. The fundamental reason that should lead a businessman to signify himself in politics is that the decisions of politicians who govern a community harm the economy of that community. For this reason, when Catalan businessmen see that the process is a disaster for the Catalan economy, I believe that many speak out and stop Artur Mas.. In politics it is very easy to look for scapegoats to find explanations for what is happening in Catalonia. And how does the PP plan to reverse this social engineering apparatus? Well, from Congress and from the Government we must reinforce the presence of the State in Catalonia and the idea of Spain, the importance of Catalonia for the whole of Spain and of the whole of Spain for Catalonia. Doing a lot of pedagogy, but not of hatred, as nationalism has done, but of harmony. There is a very important part of Catalan society that has felt abandoned by the Spanish governments and that, after the process, wants to participate in the common Spanish project. Now that there is so much talk about the emergence of the extreme right and linking Feijóo and you to the supposed ultras, do you think we are in an attempt to transfer the Tinell Pact, with which the PSC and the independence movement excluded the PP from the debate institutional Catalan, to the whole of Spain? Totally. The cordon sanitaire is a profoundly undemocratic practice, because it contravenes one of the fundamental principles of any public debate, but it has deep roots in Catalonia.. Anyone who opposes the dual tyranny of nationalism and the extreme left in Catalonia is called a facha. Speaking of the economy, when things were going well for the PP in Catalonia, with Alicia Sánchez Camacho as president and Rajoy in Moncloa, in 2012 he presented a unique financing proposal for Catalonia. Immediately rejected by Genoa 13. Do you think that this is a way to explore? What we have to aspire to is a fair financing system for all Spanish citizens. Territorial specificities must be taken into account to obtain financing that is equitable. The fundamental aspect is that of equity.. I am not in favor, therefore, of exceptionalities, but I am in favor of improving the system for all the autonomies. Why the Basques and Navarrese yes, but Catalonia cannot have an economic agreement? The Catalan economy is imbricated in that of the whole of Spain in an inseparable way. I remember that Ernest Lluch said that the debate on the fiscal deficit cannot be separated from the debate on the trade surplus. And therefore I am in favor of taking advantage of the strengths of Catalonia, not of nationalist victimhood. We must recover the economic strength of other times, when there was no fiscal pact or concert, but rather an open and enterprising society. When there has been more Generalitat in Catalonia, that mammoth structure, the worse things have been for Catalonia economically. So the priority is for the Generalitat to be loyal to the State. And how is that achieved? We see that the Catalan Government continues to break, for example, all the laws on the guarantee of Spanish as the vehicular language in Catalan education. Well, using all the resources of the rule of law. It is inadmissible that non-compliance with sentences be normalized. Among other things, not only because of the unfairness for those affected, but also because of what it means as a bad image for Catalonia, which has become a lawless territory. In this sense, we cannot have a government in Spain that is constantly discrediting Spanish justice as Pedro Sánchez's has done. He talks about a new stage in Catalonia, but is it possible with Puigdemont? Right now he is a satellite out of orbit in Catalan politics. Flap to try to survive in our public debate. Puigdemont is a legal problem that he has created and that will be solved when he makes himself available to his country, which is Spain.. If you return to Spain and Feijóo governs, would you be in favor of giving him a pardon? Taking into account that Junqueras and the rest of his government in 2017 were pardoned. Under any concept. Pardons for reasons of political interest to people who have attempted against our democracy are an insult to the citizenry. Puigdemont does not deserve a pardon for all the damage he caused to Catalonia and the whole of Spain. But politically, is it very difficult to explain that Puigdemont is in jail and Junqueras is free and leading ERC? It is very easy to explain. With a capitulating government like Sánchez's, that is what happens: pardons and perks.

The lack of doctors suffered by Andalusia and the rest of the country is leaving the health care of the population in a precarious situation. To try to correct this situation and retain the doctors who have just finished their specialty, the Junta de Andalucía is recruiting more professionals through the so-called “single acts”, with which it tries to speed up new hires.

But the results have not been entirely satisfactory.. At the moment and according to the data provided by the SAS to EL MUNDO, only 54.43% of MIR professionals who have finished their specialty have accepted a contract in the offer for the month of May. For the Andalusian Medical Union, this plan by the Junta to attract new specialists through “single acts” has been a true “failure”, which will lead public health to a “serious crisis”.

However, the Ministry of Health, headed by Catalina García, is convinced that the hiring of doctors will increase and in the coming weeks there will be more MIRs recently finished working in Andalusian public health, through “single acts” or with summer vacation plan contracts. In fact, the Junta sources recall that last year, after these hiring processes, almost 71% of MIRs stayed in Andalusia and 78% who completed their training in Primary Care remained in their work area.. The forecast that the Board is considering is that 90% of the residents finally choose to stay in the SAS. Until next November it will not be known if, finally, this high percentage was reached.

To try to retain the new doctors, the Andalusian Administration has offered twice as many places as MIR professionals finish their training. In total, 2,283 contracts have been launched and 1,115 MIR complete their training. Of the 2,283 contracts offered, 935 are for medical specialists in the area, 177 for family doctors in the Critical Care and Emergency Service, 296 for paediatricians and 875 for family doctors.

According to the available data, which are still provisional because recruitment is still underway these days, a total of 607 places offered have been covered (271 area specialist physicians, 99 family physicians in the Critical Care and Emergency Service, 8 for pediatricians and 228 for family doctors). Of these figures, 54.43% of the MIR professionals who finish and have accepted a contract come out.

Health “collapse”

The Medical Union considers other data and complains that the SAS has not published the results of the “unique acts” in order to try to “hide its inability” to attract new specialists, especially in Primary Care. The delegates of this union have compiled the figures of the contracts in the eight provinces and have reached the conclusion that these offer a “clear image of the collapse” towards which the SAS is heading.

In Primary Care, the SAS offers in the “single acts” have been rejected by the majority of the doctors who had just finished the specialty, according to the data considered by the Medical Union. In many cases, the percentage of vacancies covered has barely exceeded 10%, warns this union. “This situation aggravates the reduction in the workforce caused by the numerous retirements that will occur in the coming years,” warns this union center.

The situation in Hospital Care is no better than in Primary. In both cases, the working conditions offered by the SAS have not been attractive to new specialists who, more and more, place public health as a second or third option when they start their professional career.

rigid schedules

The key to the rejection is in the working and remuneration conditions, which are increasingly “less attractive” for new specialists. Temporary contracts, “uncompetitive” salaries, rigid schedules and rotating shifts that make it impossible to reconcile work with family life, a counterproductive incentive policy and a bureaucratized professional career disconnected from clinical practice are some of the factors that explain the « flight” of public health doctors, details the Medical Union. In fact, recent studies reveal that the average age of doctors is already lower in the private sphere than in the public sphere.

The SAS, for its part, insists that Andalusia has had a deficit of specialist doctors for years, especially in Family and Community Medicine. A situation that will worsen in the coming years with the expected retirements: 6,769 until 2032, of which 2,917 will be family doctors.

However, the Board hopes to reverse this deficit and bring forward the break-even point between doctors who retire and those who enter the Andalusian public health system. It will do so by increasing the number of resident places and trying to retain them, through the development of their professional career.

The Medical Union does not see it that way, which considers that the regulatory framework that regulates labor relations and the incentive policy cannot be the same for medical personnel as for management and services personnel. “It is urgent to establish a bilateral dialogue between the SAS and the representatives of the medical community, which should have its own Statute in accordance with its qualifications and its functions,” says this union.

Last May, the SAS signed an agreement to improve Primary Care with CCOO, UGT, Satse and CSIF. The Medical Union was removed from the pact, which asked the team of the Ministry of Health to change its attitude “radically” or resign to unblock the situation. The protests of the doctors continue.

The new Balearic government of the PP reduces two taxes in its first week in charge of the regional Executive. It will suppress the bulk of the gift and inheritance tax and eliminate the property transfer tax for young people under 30 years of age as well as for people with disabilities.

The president, Margalida Prohens, signed a decree on Tuesday establishing a first tax reform with a star measure: the total abolition of inheritance tax between parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren and spouses. With regard to the tax between siblings as well as between uncles and nephews, it will be reduced in installments that range between 25% (if there are descendants) and 50% (if there are no descendants).

“Today we end up with an unfair tax, the most unfair of all that there is, that taxes the effort and savings of a lifetime of work of the generation of our parents and grandparents,” said Prohens, who repeatedly committed himself in the campaign in that his first great measure if he governed would be the liquidation of this autonomous tax.

“More than Andalusia and Madrid”

According to the figures handled by the regional government, 60 million euros per year will no longer be collected. “The Balearic Islands will be the community where the least is paid in donations and inheritance, less than in Andalusia and Madrid,” the popular leader announced in an appearance after an extraordinary government council.

The reduction will be applied both in inheritances after death and in inheritances during life. “We do it urgently, through a decree law because these measures should have arrived years ago, citizens cannot wait any longer,” said Prohens, who promised to carry out this measure during the first hundred days of his mandate.

The decree must now be validated by the regional Parliament before it enters into force. This will take place next week, when the Chamber holds a plenary session to move it forward thanks to the support of the PP and its external allies from Vox, with whom they agreed on this measure within the package of 110 joint agreements to seal the alliance and allow the PP governs the autonomous community alone.

Prohens has assured that this is his first phase of a tax reform that will be expanded as he governs, and that will allow citizens and families, as he has said, alleviate their situation after a time in which “they have had to tighten the belt”. “It is urgent to lower taxes for families.”

Along these lines, he has stated that he hopes that if Alberto Núñez Feijóo's PP governs after next Sunday's elections, other taxes can be reviewed, such as patrimony, another of the issues that his government has promised to promote if state laws allow it. allow. Feijóo himself visits Mallorca this afternoon in campaign, and will foreseeably talk about this tax reform in the first of the territories that his party has managed to govern alone.

The Balearic government has quantified at another 15 million euros the money that taxpayers will save with its reduction in the property transfer tax that is levied on the sale of homes, and that will benefit young people, people with disabilities and other segments of the population.

This tax is specifically reduced by 50 percent for the purchase of a first home for persons under 35 years of age and for the purchase of a habitual residence for large families, single parents and families with dependent persons with disabilities.. In the case of large families, the cost of housing cannot exceed 350,000 euros.

Regarding the elimination of the wealth tax, promised in the campaign, he has admitted that as long as the so-called solidarity tax is maintained, eliminating it would have no effect on the taxpayer, which is why he has called for waiting for a hypothetical reform from the next central government.

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, changed his suit this Tuesday for a denim shirt between Brussels and San Sebastián to try to secure the two seats that the polls predict for him in the Gipuzkoan capital. In a hurry in the coming and going of his accelerated end to the campaign, Sánchez began his speech taking victory for granted – “we are going to win the elections” – and that it will be “a victory of the truth against lies.”

“The right is installed in the lie and we in the comeback,” Sánchez warned in the central argument that all the leaders of the PSOE have reactivated around the controversy over the PP and the update of pensions.

Sánchez has warned that Feijóo has the opportunity this Wednesday to clarify these lies in the debate “to four in which the PP candidate already announced that he would not attend.

“I look for votes under the stones,” said Sánchez to justify his agreements with EH Bildu, which he has linked to various social laws and the Democratic Memory Law. The socialist candidate has accused PP and Vox of “trafficking in rights and freedoms” that are not theirs in relation to the agreements reached in the municipal and regional governments. “Spain is much better than Feijóo and Abascal and that is why we are going to win the elections,” Sánchez insisted, determined to consolidate the alliance between PP and Vox.

Sánchez, who decided to advance the elections to the penultimate weekend of July during the holidays, called for participation with a special mention for young people, his goal in recent days. “The main reason to vote for the PSOE is that we have done it well,” Sánchez emphasized to repeat the list of measures adopted during the pandemic. “We have made mistakes and we have rectified and we have never given in to machismo as Feijóo has done,” said the socialist candidate before a dedicated audience.

“We need four more years to consolidate these advances,” stressed Sánchez with the enormous slogan of Adelante over his head.

“Feijóo and Abascal's proposal is only Sánchez, Sánchez and Sánchez,” he stated to start his list of socio-labour promises in the Minimum Interprofessional Wage, the pension piggy bank and Vocational Training where he pointed out that there will be 1.5 million young people studying. “We are going to make housing the great national cause”, in the next legislature he pointed out in an accelerated intervention.

And it is that the frantic coming and going of the president and candidate of the PSOE Pedro Sánchez forced Rafi Romero, head of the socialist list in Guipúzcoa, to welcome his leader when he was still driving between the Hondarribia airport and the Kursaal palace. Romero came to welcome Sánchez without the general secretary present and drew the first applause from the almost 700 supporters who packed the Kursaal palace room where the rally took place.

“You have burst the capacity”, emphasized the general secretary of the PSE-EE who transformed the ruling in the forecast of the attendees into the symptom that an electoral victory next Sunday. The Basque socialists aspire to achieve 5 deputies -the same ones that they achieved in 2019- and they received Sánchez with enthusiasm to ensure the two seats in Guipúzcoa that are played in a handful of votes. According to the latest survey carried out by the Basque radio and television, the objective of the second deputy in Guipúzcoa that motivated the presence of Sánchez in San Sebastián is disputed between the PSOE and Sumar.

With less than 5 days to go before the polls open, the Socialists would maintain a difference of 400 votes with respect to Pilar Garrido, the head of the Sumar list in Guipúzcoa and general secretary of Podemos in Euskadi.