In Seville, at the end of the Andalusian PP congress, Alberto Núñez Feijóo used the example of his colleague and “friend” Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla to underline that “you can be moderate and have determination” and “firm without falling into fanaticism”. The leader of the PP claimed the moderate and non-strident behavior of the president of Andalusia, but immediately afterwards raised the decibels of his speech against the PSOE to the maximum. Feijóo defended that the government of Pedro Sánchez “is an international disgrace” and what happened last week, with the trial of the State Attorney General, the rift between Junts and the Executive or the National Tribunal’s investigation into cash payments in the PSOE, is not typical “or of a third world country” and should have brought down the president of the government. “Any prime minister,” he lamented, “would have fallen in the middle of the week.”
“Dear colleagues, let’s not trust ourselves,” Feijóo warned the hundreds of delegates of the Andalusian congress who listened to him in the Palace of Congresses and Exhibitions in Seville. “Before us there is no logic or common sense. Before us is the government of corruption and lies.” The PP leader presented the PSOE as “sunk” and described it as “capable of absolutely anything”. «To lie, manipulate, defame, underline everything…», he complained. “This PSOE has no limits. It has no legal limits. Every day a new crime is investigated. It has no moral or modesty limits.”
“The ethical bar of the PSOE is in the basement,” hammered the PP leader, referring to the trial of the Attorney General or the UCO report on the Minister of Territorial Policies, Ángel Víctor Torres. “Whoever should prosecute the crimes, that is, the attorney general, is sitting on the bench,” he stressed. “And a minister comes out so hotly congratulating himself because in his UCO report there are no prostitutes, only whores. We should give him the socialist of the year award!”
Despite the situation he describes around the government, Feijóo asked his people “not to settle”, because the PP “was already at the gates” of La Moncloa in 2023, even if he also thought that the PSOE would lose power. “It’s not nonsense, there is only one way, which is change, there is only one way to govern the PP. And the way to govern the PP is to vote for the PP. Let’s not get lost,” he urged, in a veiled reference that could be understood as directed at Vox and its voters. At another point in his speech, Feijóo also asked right-wing voters that, even if they need “relief”, in another implicit allusion to voting for Vox, they are aware that “five minutes of relief is not necessary, it helps them (the PSOE) to stay”.
At the same time that Feijóo and Juan Manuel Moreno were speaking at the closing of the XVII Regional Congress of the PP, a few kilometers away thousands of people were demonstrating in the center of Seville in defense of public health. The left-wing opposition (PSOE, Por Andalucía y Andalucía) is betting everything on denouncing the deterioration of this public service, so much so that Moreno loses his absolute majority in the regional elections scheduled for June 2026. There is no plan B in the electoral thesis of the PSOE, which wants to transform the elections into a referendum on healthcare, according to its leaders.
Moreno is aware that this is the only message from the opposition. But the situation became complicated in the final stretch of the legislature due to failures in breast cancer screening. Two hundred complaints have been filed in court by the affected women and prosecutors have also started investigations.
The Andalusian president has gone on the offensive to reject left-wing claims that his government is privatizing public services in Andalusia. For him this criticism is an old thing, “a story” that he has heard “since he wore shorts” to “scare” society. “This is absolutely false. The alleged privatization is the big lie of the PSOE,” he said.
Moreno bases this statement on the growth of the budget of the Junta de Andalucía since he presided over it in January 2019, especially in the sectors of health, education and addiction. “Andalusia was last in terms of health spending per inhabitant and now it is above average. Is it about privatisation? No, it is moving forward.”
In a congress where the news is that there is nothing new, Moreno has provided his supporters with arguments to defend themselves from the criticisms of their opponents. The day before he had argued that “the PP is the party that has done the most for public services in the history of Andalusia”. And today he urged them to “feel proud” of what they have done “and of the public service workers”. “We will not allow them to tarnish the good reputation of our education, healthcare and addiction systems,” he stressed.
The other flag of Moreno’s campaign is the defense of political stability in Andalusia, that is, the need to reconfirm a new absolute majority and not depend on Vox, the only party with strong growth according to the polls. “It is important to have stability because where it does not exist there is regression and insecurity. This will be at stake. There is a confluence of populist interests that want to turn Andalusia into mud and polarization. A temporary electoral union of all opposition groups to interrupt change in Andalusia.” In this sort of UTE, the Andalusian president includes the left and Vox, although sometimes the criticism of the far right is much harsher than that of the left-wing parties. “All opposition groups, side A and side B, seek the same thing: to break the stability of the majority”
