The general secretary of the PSOE-A and candidate for the Presidency of the Junta, María Jesús Montero, has expressed her firm opposition to any post-election agreement with Juanma Moreno, the PP candidate, aimed at blocking Vox's participation in the regional government. This stance is maintained despite her stated concern about the advance of Santiago Abascal's party in the region.
“"The Socialist Party and the Popular Party are incompatible, and we represent a different model of society."
Montero emphasized her apprehension regarding the potential repercussions of the far-right's arrival at the Palacio de San Telmo, the seat of the autonomous Presidency. She warned of a potential “colonization of those institutions and a regression of democratic behaviors,” which could lead to “dictatorial behaviors.”
Despite this assessment, the socialist candidate has ruled out the only arithmetic path that, in principle, could avoid dependence on Vox: an agreement with the Popular Party. For Montero, the solution lies in voter mobilization and support for left-wing forces, considering that “voting for progressive forces is the best way, the best vaccine to prevent this rise.”
In this context, Montero positively assessed the agreement reached between IU, Podemos, Movimiento Sumar, and other left-wing formations to run jointly in the elections. Nevertheless, she reiterated that the PSOE-A aims to secure the broadest possible majority to govern alone.
Additionally, the candidate criticized the Junta's health management, describing the situation of “4,000 affected women” due to delays in breast cancer screening as “inhumane mistreatment” and “serious negligence.” She also defended the regional financing model she proposed as Minister of Finance, asserting that it is “objectively very good for Andalucía” and, in its entirety, does not contemplate ordinality as a principle, although she admitted that for some autonomous communities, this ordinality could be met.
Finally, Montero addressed the messages she sent to José Luis Ábalos in July 2022, published by El Mundo, where she referred to him affectionately. She justified these 'whatsapps' as “affectionate messages from a time when the situation of that person was not known at all,” referring to the investigation surrounding the former minister for alleged irregularities in the purchase of masks.
