The Andalusian PP will again have full mayoralties, an achievement that already occurred in 1995 and in 2011, the two previous milestones in the race for municipal power of the popular Andalusians. The success of Juanma Moreno on the night of May 28 had a stain in Jaén, but two weeks of negotiations have ended up unbalancing the balance towards the popular, who have reached an agreement with the Jaén Deserves More formation despite aggressive offers of the PSOE. The Socialists, with the still mayor Julio Millán at the helm, have come to offer an agreement for the provincialist party to govern the city in order to avoid the arrival of the PP to power.
José Agustín González Romo will be the new councilor from Jaen this Saturday. PP and PSOE tied 11 councilors on 28-M, with the Socialists ahead at a slight distance of 297 votes. The three ediles of Jaén Deserves More allow the popular candidate, who is still General Director of Consumption of the Junta de Andalucía, to tie the investiture without depending on Vox, which achieved two representatives. The two parties report this Friday on the agreement, which has been negotiated very discreetly between the almost desperate attempts of the Socialists.
Millán began by proposing an agreement of 40 programmatic points, then offered the provincial party a year as mayor and this Thursday, with the pact almost closed, he resigned from the baton to hand it over to Jaén Deserves More to form a “sanitary cordon” against the PP. Provincial and Andalusian PSOE sources privately admitted the difficulties they would have in convincing the provincial formation, which abandoned the platform of Empty Spain a few weeks ago due to a conflict with Teruel Exists. The unwritten law of this current goes through supporting the most voted list, but popular pressure has had its effect. The differential fact is that the PP controls the Junta and many projects in the capital of Jaen depend on the regional Administration. The fact that the PSOE has the Provincial Council of Jaén, has not convinced the provincial party.
The third plenary session of the PP
The Jaén agreement dyes the eight capitals of Andalusia blue after weeks of discreet negotiations led by the provincial president of the PP, Érik Dominguez, and the general secretary of the popular Andalusians, Antonio Repullo. The PP thus takes advantage of the wave in which it rose on June 19, 2022, with the absolute majority of Juanma Moreno. The absorption of Ciudadanos and the bad moment of the Andalusian PSOE are the other two ingredients that complete the recipe for success of the man from Malaga, who opted for profiles similar to his for the eight capitals.
The PP has an absolute majority in Córdoba, Málaga, Almería, Granada and Cádiz. In the first three, the councilors who were in charge repeat: José María Bellido, the veteran Francisco de la Torre and María del Mar Vázquez, mayor since last summer, when the previous councilor from Almería, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, left the City Council to Be a Sustainability Minister of the Government of Juanma Moreno.
In Granada and Cádiz, success corresponds to two bets from the President of the Board. The Nasrid capital remains in the hands of Marifrán Carazo, who has been Minister of Development between 2019 and last April, and was the most valued member of the Andalusian cabinet of Juanma Moreno. The landing in Granada deactivated the good moment of the socialist mayor, Francisco Cuenca, who still has not fully understood his defeat. In Cádiz, Bruno García recovers what Teófila Martínez lost after prevailing over the left in a heart-stopping recount: councilor number 14 won at 98% of the vote to the detriment of Adelante Izquierda Gaditana, the party of the still mayor, José María González, Kichi who was not running for re-election.
In addition to Granada and Cádiz, the PP recovered the largest city in Andalusia and the capital of the community, after eight years of PSOE governments. José Luis Sanz will be mayor of the city of Seville and, thanks to the 14 councilors that 28-M achieved, he will not need Vox. PSOE and the left add up to those same 14 councilors, but, being the list with the most votes, Sanz does not need the votes of Santiago Abascal's party for the investiture. Yes, he will need them to carry out local budgets and other projects, but the popular senator has already advanced even in the formation of his Government and his greatest challenge is cleaning.
The popular ones do not need Vox in Huelva either, where Pilar Miranda achieved a turnaround that has left the Huelva PSOE knocked out. The socialist Gabriel Cruz governed with an absolute majority in recent years, but a very successful campaign by the popular candidate and a problem when it comes to testing his support have left him out of the game, although he will head the PSOE list for Congress on July 23. This defeat has been key to the loss of the Diputación de Huelva for the first time in democratic history for the Socialists.
Agreement for the Provincial Council of Cádiz
The extension of the municipal power of the PP is not limited to the capitals. The absolute majorities have been repeated in Jerez, Algeciras, Marbella and Roquetas de Mar, which leaves Dos Hermanas as the only city of 100,000 inhabitants in Andalusia in the hands of the PSOE. And the reversal is repeated in the councils, since, in addition to Huelva, the PP has also safely recovered that of Córdoba and Granada. This Friday it has also been made public, according to Diario de Cádiz and this newspaper has confirmed, that the popular will recover the Cadiz provincial institution after 8 years under socialist control.
The change of color occurs thanks to the agreement between the PP and La Línea 100×100, the party led by Juan Franco in this town in Campo de Gibraltar and which achieved 75% of the support on 28-M. What is striking is that the PSOE governed the Diputación until now thanks to an agreement with this independent formation. Sources familiar with the negotiation point to the bad relationship between the linense councilor and the provincial leader of the PSOE, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix, still president of the Provincial Council and mayor of San Roque. As in Jaén, the weight of the institutional power of the PP, which controls the Junta, has also weighed on these negotiations.