Reversal to the Andalusian left. Antonio Maíllo (Lucena, Córdoba, 59 years old) will be Por Andalucía’s candidate for the presidency of the Council in the regional elections scheduled for June 2026. The left-wing coalition thus changes its forecasts and bets on a candidate it deems the best to mobilize the left and “fight the battle in Andalusia, where Moreno no longer has the security he had before”, according to Izquierda sources. United.
The decision was formally agreed last Wednesday at the Por Andalucía party table, attended by representatives of the IU, the Sumar Movement and the Andalusian Popular Initiative. Podemos, which is part of the coalition, was not present, as usual.
Maíllo’s return to the forefront of Andalusian politics, at the top of the list for Seville, means hitting the very fragmented left table. There will certainly be three offers in this space: PSOE, Por Andalucía and Adelante Andalucía, the formation founded by Teresa Rodríguez which broke unilaterally first with Podemos and then with IU. The group founded by Pablo Iglesias has not yet made a decision regarding the Andalusian elections, but Por Andalucía assumes that it will choose to go alone.
IU sources believe that Andalusia will be “decisive” in the electoral cycle that will open with the regional elections and then in the general ones, if Pedro Sánchez maintains his intention to hold elections in 2027.
Maíllo is the general coordinator of the IU and will have institutional visibility from the Andalusian Parliament that he now lacks, given that he does not have a seat in Congress. It will also be a Parliament in which the federal deputy secretary of the PSOE and candidate for the presidency of the Council, María Jesús Montero, will also be present. “In Andalusia, Moreno’s majority is at stake and Antonio’s repulsion could be decisive. His profile embodies Andalusia’s fight for public health. Andalusia has been decisive in the changes in this country. Now Andalusia can be the turning point for the left and the beginning of the “reconquest” of this country in the face of the advance of the right. The IU puts all its efforts because the Andalusian and Spanish situation demands it in the elections that they will be held at the national level but, with Antonio on the scene, they will no longer be bipartisan, Moreno against María Jesús Montero,” IU sources say.
Izquierda Unida had already started the procedure in October 2024 to repeat the Por Andalucía coalition, registered weeks ago as a political party. He wanted to avoid at all costs what happened in the Andalusian elections of 2022, when they were late in registering the coalition, which is why the three Podemos deputies who drew up the minutes appear as independents.
The IU elected the general secretary of the Communist Party of Andalusia, Ernesto Alba, as its presidential candidate in the primaries; Movement Add its Andalusian coordinator, Esperanza Gómez; and the Andalusian Popular Initiative to its leader. Maíllo’s proposal was approved unanimously by these three parties.
Maíllo’s appearance is scheduled for this Friday at 10am in the Alameda de Hércules in Seville.
