When Felipe González began to rebuild the PSOE from the ashes of the dictatorship, he had Rafael Escuredo at his side. Both were colleagues in the legendary labor office on Capitán Vigueras Street, the seed of that Andalusian clan that was key to returning the old Socialist Party to relevance.. Afterwards their paths separated, although always under the umbrella of the formation. And they are still there almost half a century later, although both now disagree, as they did before, in the direction they should follow now, under the leadership of Pedro Sánchez.

Escuredo is not in the photo of the tortilla, the founding image of that southern clan. But it could have been. Student of the Faculty of Law of the University of Seville, like González and most of the rest of the names that are already part of the political history of Andalusia and Spain. In the pine forests of the Sevillian town of Isla Mayor, Manuel del Valle pressed the button on Pablo Juliá's camera and immortalized a day in the field without which the current PSOE cannot be understood.. And whose protagonists now clash to defend, some, and criticize, others, how the current general secretary leads the socialist helm.

“The position of both former leaders, I know them well, I insist, is born from their wounded self-esteem”. The phrase is from Luis Yáñez-Barnuevo, another of the protagonists of the historic photo and Secretary of State with Felipe González. He has been one of the critical voices of the positions of González and Guerra, who now boast of being in harmony after years of distance.. This doctor was part of that pact, which some call Betis, between Basque and Sevillian socialists and which the PSOE renewed after the Suresnes congress..

Yáñez-Barnuevo has been more explicit and has reacted explicitly to the conclave of the “PSOE mahogany” – in the words of Iván Redondo – that was held on Wednesday at the Ateneo de Madrid. For the Sevillian politician, González and Guerra's problem is a kind of jealousy for “not being the ones to star in this crucial moment”. For “not being consulted by Pedro [Sánchez]” and not “resigning to the passage of time”.

The time of political transition has passed although it is difficult for some to metabolize it.

— Rafael Escuredo Rodriguez (@fuentedelrey) September 7, 2023

But it was Escuredo who was the first to raise his voice when González and, above all, Guerra launched the broadside against Sánchez. On his Twitter account, now X, he sent some cryptic but eloquent messages. “The time of political transition has passed, although it is difficult for some to metabolize it,” published the first elected president of the Junta de Andalucía, who considers his old militant colleagues his “political references,” but who accumulates a history of distances With both.

The most relevant occurred precisely in the process of achieving Andalusian autonomy.. The PSOE was involved in popular demands, as was the entire political spectrum except the extreme right and Alianza Popular.. But when the time came to grant Andalusia full autonomy, there were doubts. The Constitution of '78 posed an arduous path for the regions that wanted to be equated with the so-called historical communities, those that had status before the Civil War.. And the PSOE of Felipe y Guerra was not for the work of that coffee for all that ended up arriving after the pressure of the Andalusian referendum. In this context, Escuredo even proposed a hunger strike, with Adolfo Suárez in the Government, but the Jacobin socialists, like Alfonso Guerra, did not facilitate the path for Andalusia to reach that full autonomy..

Escuredo ended up outside the Board, he resigned, precisely, 18 hours after a meeting with Guerra in the Moncloa, back in 1984.. Two years earlier, the Sevillian politician had achieved an absolute majority of 66 seats. For comparison, there are eight more than Juanma Moreno has today in the same Andalusian Parliament of 109 seats, although then the regional legislature was not in the enormous Cinco Llagas Hospital.. It was in the headquarters of the old Court of Seville, today Fundación Cajasol.

The award to Felipe González

It is the same place where Felipe González received the Ibero-American Torre del Oro award a few days ago. Where a series of veterans from the same era as Escuredo reproached him for his positions. “What you say hurts us,” said Pepe Romero, historical Ugetista and Labor Minister of the first Government of Escuredo.. The day after that event, with González supported by Juanma Moreno, the former Andalusian president disgraced his former colleague who “instead of defending the PSOE, he shamelessly seeks the continuous applause of the right.”. “Something nests inside him that leads him to seek applause, to continue feeding his ego,” Escuredo concluded..

This activism in defense of the leaders of the current PSOE, far from that PSOE of Suresnes, has turned Escuredo into a reference for the formation. It was noted at the presentation of the latest novel by the politician born in Estepa, at the House of the Province of Seville, last Tuesday. The leadership of the Andalusian PSOE gathered there, which had not attended the González award just a few days before because they were not invited by the entity that granted the award.. The divorce between the old and the new PSOE became evident in the province with the largest number of militants. “The heart of the PSOE”, as Javier Fernández de los Ríos, the new leader of the Sevillian socialists, called it, who was in the prize for the president of the Government, like Juan Espadas, because they had received an invitation.

“If there were a primary today, Pedro Sánchez would get 99%,” a Ferraz source joked in Congress this Thursday.. In the last primaries, he achieved 50.2% compared to Susana Díaz's 39.9%. The Andalusian baroness then had the support of Guerra and González. And that is where many of these veterans, like Luis Yáñez, locate the origin of the animosity that both show towards the now president. And in that exaggerated 99% would be Escuredo and he would be the only one on the list of Andalusian presidents who would be part of it. José Rodríguez de la Borbolla, who succeeded him after resigning, is another representative of that Jacobin PSOE. And the other two former presidents, Manuel Chaves and José Antonio Griñán, have problems returning to public life after their conviction in the ERE case.