Ada Colau has made her debut in Andalusia in a campaign - which she has admitted is "difficult" - marking distances with the PSOE partners, trying to claim her own profile after almost eight years of coalition government with Pedro Sánchez and appealing to mobilization to combat the discouragement of polls against her.
He did so at a rally in which he attacked the "cruel and cowardly right" embodied by the PP and Vox, warning that these two parties are cruel to "the vulnerable, women, the elderly or migrants." Avoiding a government of the PP and Vox, he has pointed out, is the objective of the Frente Amplio, but not the only one.
There, he has stressed, is the main difference with the PSOE. "We want to avoid a right-wing and extreme right-wing government, but we want to go for more, more rights, more dignity, cutting privileges from above to protect the social majority from below."
The former mayor of Barcelona has put her management in the Catalan capital as an example of what she wants to do after November 29 and has stressed that "we are very serious" and that is making the right "nervous."
Health, housing, pensions... are the axes of the electoral program outlined by the Frente Amplio candidate, who has reiterated her intention to increase taxes on the highest classes, "the richest." "We are very serious," he cried.
He has called, above all, for the mobilization of left-wing voters, whom he has urged not to give up, and has appealed to the "secret power", that of "the working social majority, when it mobilizes, it makes the impossible possible."
He has despised the polls that predict bad results for the Frente Amplio and, in the face of that, he has claimed that "we are the majority and we are going to give the big surprise." "They want us depressed," he warned before prophesying that on 29N "we will make history again if we go out en masse to vote."
And he winked at women when talking about menopause, which "it is a shame that it is treated as if it were a woman's thing" and not a part of health, with its health protocols. Women at this stage, she claimed, "need information and support and, in many cases, treatments", committing to having all of this covered by the public health system.
The landing in the campaign of the leader of the Commons in Andalusia has not been preceded by good omens. The initial location of the rally, the Tiro de Línea neighborhood, in the southern district of the Andalusian capital (with a notable symbolic load) changed, for meteorological reasons, and the candidate for the Presidency for the Frente Amplio has had to seek refuge in El Fuerte de Isla Mágica, the Sevillian theme park. For one reason or another, the attendance at the event was low, 600 people according to the organization's data, and many chairs were left stacked and unused.
Andalusia is not an easy place for the Frente Amplio led by Colau. And this despite the fact that Izquierda Unida - one of the fundamental legs of the left-wing electoral platform - has a specific weight in the community. Not in vain, it is the region in which it has the most territorial implantation and, also, where it has considerable institutional power, which is reflected in 60 mayoralties and 882 councilors.
However, the fiefdom of Antonio Maíllo, federal coordinator of IU, is seriously threatened by Adelante Andalucía, the party founded by Teresa Rodríguez after her departure from Podemos and now led by José Ignacio García. Polls suggest that this formation, with the flag of left-wing Andalusianism, could manage, for the first time in its history, to enter the Congress of Deputies. And that would be at the expense, to a large extent, of the Broad Front.
Precisely in Seville, where Colau debuted this Saturday and where the head of the list is Enrique Santiago, general secretary of the PCE, the polls predict that Frente Amplio, the former Sumar, would lose on November 29 the two deputies it obtained in the July 2023 elections and one of them would be, precisely, for the Adelante Andalucía list.
García's party already managed to overtake Por Andalucía - the brand under which the left-wing parties were integrated - in the regional elections last May. Adelante Andalucía was the big surprise of those elections, to the point that it quadrupled its seats - going from two to eight - and achieved a support of 9.61%, while Por Andalucía (where IU and Sumar joined, among other formations) had to settle for keeping the five seats it already had with 6.31% of the votes.
For the rally with which Colau made his debut in Andalusia, the Frente Amplio has displayed a poster of first swords. Colau was preceded by the number one for Madrid, Emilio Delgado, who has strongly attacked the Madrid president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, whom he has called a "scoundrel" for saying that entrepreneurship is lacking and has called, in the face of the elections, to "mobilize hope."
Delgado has opted to combat the speculative economy and, in its place, promote a collaborative economy and green policies. "Tax wealth" is another of the keys that has been revealed, in favor of a tax for the richest, for 1%, pointing out the daily salaries of senior executives, who "earn in one day what working families do not earn in two years."
For his part, Toni Valero, leader of IU in Andalusia, has admitted that these elections are "transcendental" since what is involved is deciding "what model of society is imposed, whether we have a state that protects us and gives security to the working class" and has charged against "a few who are not stealing."
Valero has opted to "recover what is ours by taxing speculators and expropriating vulture funds", while accusing Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal of preparing "the chainsaw" and wanting to "commodify healthcare and social rights." He has described them as "homeland sellers" and has insisted that Frente Amplio does have a plan, ideals, "a shared horizon" with the people "and that is what differentiates us most from the PSOE, that we are not satisfied."
He has dedicated numerous criticisms to the PSOE, ensuring that it does not engage in left-wing politics, that "it must be forced" and has stressed that the increase in the minimum wage would not have been possible without Sumar in the government.
That is why he has asked for the vote for Frente Amplio and has insisted that this is the "useful vote." "The useful vote is about what that seat is for," he said in clear reference to Adelante Andalucía, which disputes the vote in Andalusia according to the polls and whose leaders he has called "grumpy and conformist" for not caring who governs in Madrid. "It does matter," cried Valero.
Verónica Martínez Barbero, spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, has stood out for the work carried out by Yolanda Díaz in the Ministry of Labor and has recalled how the first thing she did was suppress dismissal due to sick leave and has promised, in terms of housing, to expropriate the vulture funds. But, above all, he has insisted on the need to avoid a "right-wing" government.
He has predicted, facing 29N, that the PP and Vox "are not going to be given the numbers to stop the rights of the people."
The person in charge of opening the event was Enrique Santiago, head of the list for the Frente Amplio in Seville, who has attributed the main social measures approved by the government to the left-wing coalition and has congratulated himself for having "stopped the right and the extreme right." "Objective achieved, we said they will not pass and they have not passed," the communist leader added.
In this sense, he highlighted the pressure exerted on the PSOE in the executive and pointed out that "we have forced the PSOE to go much further", highlighting how each council of ministers "has been a battle".
