Yolanda Vallejo: The shipwreck accountant

María Jesús Montero intends to settle into Andalusian politics like someone who sits in an old armchair inherited from their grandmother, without questioning its condition too much, convinced that, even if the fabric is worn and the springs expired, it will always serve to bring her back as a girl. … prodigal of a socialism which is no longer what it was, but which she imagines to be eternal. His leadership – if you can call it that – is more an exercise in emotional accounting than actual policy. Accustomed to balancing accounts that never add up and to defending the indefensible, she believes that her loyalty to Sanchismo will be enough to apply in Andalusia the same rhetorical alchemy that she practices in Madrid. The socialist leader who speaks of regeneration and commitment knows that every time a scandal breaks out – one day yes, and another too – she must whitewash the facade as if the problem were the news and not the cracks of her party, and acts as the accountant of the shipwreck: she revises the figures, adjusts the concepts, reinterprets the decisions and disguises the responsibilities, trying to wrap in cellophane the confidence lost in a region that no longer buys stories so old and used.

There is something tragic, almost Shakespearean, in Montero’s insistence on resurrecting a leadership supported more by will than by political commitment. The socialist candidate for the presidency of the Council speaks with grandiloquence in an Andalusia which no longer trusts the inflated speeches or the arrogance of the Madrid office. His leadership is not a promise, it is a mirage for the Andalusians who know perfectly well how to distinguish between voices and echoes, between light and brightness. Her attitude as a faithful vassal – so oviesse good sir – does not strengthen her, but rather reduces her, makes her appear like a functionary in someone else’s story, and not the leader of her own project, and here we Andalusians are tired of people who try to rule us from Madrid.

Andalusia doesn’t need someone to explain how she should feel, but someone to listen to how she actually feels. If Montero wants to be more than just the notary of the latest socialist fire, she will have to ask herself whether she prefers to continue putting out the flames that increasingly surround Sánchez, or to start ventilating the house. Changing names, renewing ranks, creating empty slogans is of no use if the names are tainted, the acronyms corrupted and the slogans repeated in court. Saying that Paco Salazar no longer belongs to the PSOE or that the investigation is still open does not erase the stigma. And Montero does not realize – or does not seem to know – that he is wearing the sambenito tight around his neck.

Andalusian socialism is going through an identity crisis. After decades of hegemony, today we live in a scenario in which citizens demand clear answers, not technical details or stories prepared by Moncloa. Andalusia demands consistency, and consistency, in politics, is measured by the ability to point out what is unacceptable, even when it comes from one’s own. But recanting Sánchez’s catechism doesn’t seem to make it into Montero’s ledger.

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