En ajedrez, el zugzwang (a German term meaning “obligation to move”) is a situation in which a player is judged to have to move. In position zugzwangAny move that causes the player to take advantage of the situation or take them directly to the left.
And due to the fact that there is no possibility of “passing the turn” in the ajedrez, el zugzwang safely results in damage to the player who is in that position.
Calling elections in Andalusia is a zugzwang.
1. First player: the biggest table
Andalusia is not a larger community. She is the mayor of Spain, the one who counts the most politics in Congress, the one who has been the inseparable giant of socialism for thirty-six years.
The journey to Andalusia is not a chance for autonomous elections: it is to send a message that the current hegemony of the PP is no longer happening.
But above all it is to send the message that “volver atrás” for the Andalusians… it is the PSOE.
Andalusian President Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, Galician President Alfonso Rueda and Murcia President Fernando López Miras.
EFE
Once the PP conquers Andalucia (and goes into a third term in a row), it will defeat the PSOE not only with votes, but also with relationship, identity and arguments.
Pedro Sánchez can survive the catastrophe in Aragón and including the Community of Madrid which is the cause of the losses before them Isabel Díaz Ayuso including before depositing the urns.
But you can’t survive three consecutive defeats in Andalusia.
2. Jaque segundo: cheerleader like records
Sánchez made a classic mistake of strategic sobriety: he sent his vice president and country minister to lead the Andalusian PSOE.
Why? María Jesús Montero Read the 2018 Govt.
And everything that Sánchez has done in these years (amnesties, pardons, presupuestos that do not arise, a deed that is forgiven in Catalonia, inflation, the destruction of the housing market, the migration avalanche) evokes his signature, his silence or applause.
Moreno doesn’t need to attack Montero for so long: he just mentions the president. PSOE’s candidate is King Moncloa. For the large suit of armor that was for the president.
Pedro Sánchez and María Jesús Montero.
It is like playing king with a king, a king hated by most of the Spaniards, and tolerated with increasing annoyance by a large part of the rest, subject to the heart of the queen.
3. Jaque the third: court calendar as artillery
The Andalusian pre-campaign will coincide with a key point in the trial of Sanchism. The “Koldo case” brought you to the oral juicio Abalos in banquill. The “Case of Begoña Gómez” will advance to a more publicized phase.
Montero tries to write lists of hopes or life in Seville, but the corruption of Pedro Sánchez’s family and government opens the TV diaries.
Moreno has not ruled on those events on the court calendar. But yes, it is important that the choices coincide with her. And this is not accidental. It’s a strategy. Y mala leche.
4. Jaque cuarto: enroque abortado
Sánchez’s team spent weeks studying the possibility of calling a general election together with Andalusians. The logic was transparent: if the debate was national, Montero would separate himself from the territory and the PSOE could move on its basis with the “ellos or us” argument.
But Juanma Moreno cut off this escape route.
When elections were called for May 17, Juanma Moreno declared that it would be political suicide to defend the generals before that date.
If you do, it will mean that the Andalusian disaster has damaged the environment.
Enroque abortado: the opponent’s play is blocked before execution.
5. Fifth Jaque: accumulated wind cola
Moreno calls with el viento de cola. El PP acaba de barrer en Castilla y León. Antes lo hizo en Extremadura y en Aragón. Spain’s autonomous map is drawn in blue, except for the benefits that the PSOE supports thanks to investment partners.
Every PP victory in a new community with a new presidency over the central government undermines Sánchez’s narrative and boosts the morale of the popular voter.
Moreno is calling elections at the best moment of his political career (his triumphant election incl El Hormiguero continues in the memory of the Spaniards) and with a rival in his biggest historical brand of electoral intention.
6. Jaque sexto: el antisanchismo como electoral pegamento
The Andalusian PP voter has several reasons to vote for Moreno, but the whole group has one: the average Andalusian does not go to Sánchez.
The questions are unanimous: anti-sancism is the first reason for the elections in the Andalusian region. Y Moreno turned it into a polling station.
Juan Manuel Moreno in El Hormiguero.
En El HormigueroJuanma Moreno I say it without rodeo: “president, yes I estás oyendo, come with me to the elections because Andalusians do not want to vote”.
No, it was a provocation. It was time to highlight the opponent’s inferiority. In the Andalusian table, Sánchez is toxic.
7. Jaque septimo: encerrona María Jesús Montero
If Montero campaigns for the ministry, it will be noted that she is the minister who has not been able to approve a single statewide provision in the entire legislative term.
If you resign yourself to a full-on campaign, you implicitly accept that being Sánchez’s minister is a plate in Andalusia.
Montero can’t keep his head down. You can try to distance yourself from the central government, but its constituents demand a Sanchist need, and their eventual moderate constituents call for it precisely because of that.
The Montero is packed with no empty boxes left.
8. Jaque octavo: the end of Vox’s fantasy
The victory of Moreno with an absolute majority (or rosandola) will highlight something that matters to you and is being discussed in the Spanish right: Vox is not an alternative to PP, it is techo.
Santiago Abascal You can grow up in Andalusia, you can steal money, you can force a negotiation. But you won’t be able to force anything on Juanma Moreno.
A voter who was in PP for the first time in 2022, previously voted for citizens or sat at home, met what he was looking for in Moreno: conservatism without striving, without sharpness and with management.
Every time you take a PP to the Vox coast, it is a confirmation of the failure of the theory that Santiago Abascals can replace the center in Spain.
Santiago Abascal in the Valladolid campaign.
9. New Jaque: effect dominated against Ferraz
The historic mistake of the PSOE in Andalusia (less than three men, with Montero humiliated in his country) will not be a local accident. It will be an expansionary wave that will pass through all party headquarters.
Federation of Madrid, Valencia and Catalonia, hey, you know: “Detrás de Andalucía iremos los demás”.
The ministerial candidate model, tested and broken in Aragón and Andalucia, will be given a definitive shake-up in a yes-or-yes scenario.
10. Possible food: national table after May 17
If, on the night of May 17, Juanma Moreno stands according to the scenario with an absolute mayor or almost mayor, with an irrelevant or almost irrelevant Vox, the national table will change irreversibly.
The narrative that Sánchez can win until 2027 will be unsustainable.
An internal presence in the PSOE to force an emergency congress or leadership renewal will be irresistible.
Feijóo makes a definitive argument to demand the invitation of the supposed generals.
And Pedro Sánchez, the toughest guy in recent Spanish politics, first answers a question he doesn’t have an answer to: Why does anyone want to vote in Spain?
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