This time it was clear. They weren't going to make the same mistake again.. For this reason, on June 20, when the electoral coordinator of the PSOE in Andalusia, Antonio Gutiérrez Limones, a veteran socialist, was asked what the socialist strategy would be in these general elections, he transmitted the new slogan without hesitation or nuance: “We are not going to talk about Vox”. If that was the intention of the PSOE, not to mention the ultra-right in the electoral campaign, today we can certify that the purpose must have lasted for the minutes in which they presented the strategy, like the one offered by this Andalusian PSOE campaign coordinator, which must have been symmetrical in all federations and socialist groups.
They intended to do that, not to mention Vox, and, in fact, that is what made the most sense, not to insist on the message of fear of the extreme right.. Although political memory is very weak, if we review the elections held in the last three years, we will see that each socialist defeat has been accompanied by the recognition that the classical discourse was already charred.. What has happened then so that, once again, the campaign of fear has been traced to the right? Perhaps sheer inertia, or a lack of alternative ideas, or a sum of all. For the moment, what we can analyze is why it was thought, a month ago, that we had to change our strategy and wait to see what happens at the polls on 23-J.
A year ago, after the Andalusian elections of June 20, in which the Popular Party obtained its first absolute majority in this community, the Socialists were very clear that they themselves had favored the victory of Juanma Moreno because, by warning so much against the the arrival of Vox to the Government, what they had caused is that many socialist voters, frightened, would have changed their vote to support the popular ones and close the door to the extreme right. “The strategy has not worked, because we have caused the opposite effect to what we were looking for, that hundreds of thousands of leftist voters have voted for Juanma Moreno to prevent Macarena Olona from becoming the vice president of the Junta de Andalucía”. In other words, exactly the same thing that is being proposed in this campaign, with the constant reiteration that Santiago Abascal will be the vice president of the Government of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. In any case, these Andalusian elections were not the first in which the PSOE, upon verifying the dismal results at the polls, drew the conclusion that it had to change its strategy.
The first time that campaign model began to falter was in the regional elections of Castilla y León, in which, despite the insistence on the pact of the extreme right, the Socialists lose representation in all electoral calls. That of Castilla y León was the first coalition government to be established and the vice president of Vox, Juan García-Gallardo, represents the cafre, macho and controversial prototype of Abascal's party. Well, in the last municipal elections, what happened is that the PP swept the town halls and obtained, by absolute majority, eight of the nine councils of this community. In this case, therefore, not only is the strategy of fear of the extreme right not working, but also, when a coalition government is produced, the one that benefits is also the Popular Party.
And Madrid? Haven't all the strategies, not only of the PSOE, but also of Podemos, in the Community of Madrid, failed miserably? It was precisely in Madrid, after the electoral crash of the PSOE in the regional elections of May 2021, with Ángel Gabilondo as candidate, when the Socialists began to consider that “it is no longer possible to continue invoking the photo of Colón, because the fear of the extreme right is no longer able to mobilize the progressive electorate as happened in 2019 ”, they repeated then.
What they did not analyze is that the insults and smear campaigns against certain Popular Party candidates do not work either. Isabel Díaz Ayuso was called directly crazy, “Ida”, using the acronym of her name to turn the pun into laughter. They made fun of her in gatherings, while the president of Madrid was consolidating her leadership in the streets. Result: absolute majority. In the town hall and in the community.
In other words, the PSOE was right before starting the campaign. For this reason, the Andalusian coordinator was so blunt: “We are not going out to say that the bad guys are coming, but that the good guys are here.”. We are going to ask for the useful vote, so that the candidacy of Pedro Sánchez concentrates progressive voters, against the Popular Party, which only talks about repealing sanchismo. But what does he want to repeal, what is he hiding?. The change of opinion and strategy that we can see just a month later, when the campaign is already expiring, has accelerated until it reached the apocalyptic, terrifying attacks of these last days.
The latest has been to warn of a violent assault on the Congress of Deputies “if the PP and Vox do not win the elections”. It also turns out that those who are saying it are Patxi López and Maritxel Batet, the last two socialist presidents of Congress. Are the bad guys coming? No, even worse, what is coming is absolute evil, “a return to the Inquisition”, which the socialist spokesman has also said, as if Torquemada himself, arrived in the tunnel of time, were Feijóo's candidate for the Ministry of Interior. In short, if on Sunday, again, it is found that the socialist strategy did not work, it will only be necessary to remind the leaders of the PSOE that they themselves already knew it. And that it is very good to draw lessons from defeats, in politics as in life, but that it is even better to apply them and not forget them.