This week, the president of the Andalusian Council, Juanma Moreno, dissolved the Andalusian parliament and called elections. The Andalusian PSOE decided that María Jesús Montero was the best possible candidate to lead the party in the May 17 election. I guess they’re right. And that’s exactly the problem.
Because Montero is on its own merits, extremely poor candidate. A short but hearty trip awaits us for our “hazañas”. As advised by the Hacienda de la Junta, since the Andalusian Legislature had expressly designated it as the competent authority to instigate legal actions designed to recover fraudulent sums from the autonomous Hacienda, there was no impetus to recover the 680 million that the Supreme Tribunal confirmed as embezzled in the ERE, the biggest case of institutional corruption in Spanish democracy.
As a health board, the Andalusian health system reached 1,500 million between 2009 and 2013, In the SAS, 8,000 effective cases were lost and hundreds of thousands of patients were hidden on hope lists. As Minister of the Hacienda, she approved more than ninety tax laws, while publicly denying that she was subject to impuestas.
And when the TSJC acquitted Dani Alves, it declared a “vergüenza” that the presumption of innocence was “for the crime” of the victim’s testimony, prompting a unanimous response from every gambling and tax association in the country.
You can follow. But to that. An interesting question is that this global inventory: how is it possible that the party that ruled Andalusia for 37 consecutive years and that for decades controlled every institutional table of the most populous community in Spain, Come to 2026 with 30 MPs and the best team in the world with this history?
The ascension criterion moves from the best person to the best person in the red
The answer is not in Montero, which would strain your decommunal ego. It’s in the hole that made it.
First example: when a party runs with unlimited institutional resources for decades, talent must be needed. What is needed is loyalty. It is clear that the criterion for the rise is moving from the best person to the best person in the red.
Who has no inconveniences, who holds the shoulders of the one who has the power to enforce them. This is the adaptive logic of any organization that does not detract from real competence. Y, in the Spanish case is the saint and sign of Pedro Sánchez.
The second formulation: it degrades the song until no one perceives it. Every action for exclusive loyalty to someone competent.
Multiplied by thousands of members and decades of government, the result is a political elite perfectly suited to a clientelistic system and fit for nothing else. PSOE-A leads until 2026 with only one credible leader who does not carry the weight of this system. Montero is the result.
Montero leaves the government to play it all in Andalusia, but maintains his position in Congress to preserve his official status and the reserve of the square in the Virgen del Rocío Hospital
The third link: culture becomes invisible. What would be scandalous in the community of the elderly, such as condescending to the one who owes you a favor in the place of greatest capacity, or protecting the corruption of the house from the treasury, is regarded as loyalty.
The culture we live in makes the hole transparent, so nadie, that’s why it’s worse because it takes so much time to make it look natural. For example Montero can present himself as a defender of Andalusian public health without being influenced by his party.
Here’s the bug: the system becomes incapable of self-repair. When it comes time to renew the leader, the people who choose their own hole make the decision.
And they do it according to the same criteria they chose for them. Therefore, no credible renovator was created. And yes, Montero, surrounded by clouds, is an ideal candidate. That’s the only thing possible.
There is one detail that keeps it all going: Montero leaves the government to play it all in Andalusia, but maintains his presence in Congress to keep his official status and the reserve of a place at the Virgen del Rocío hospital. The candidate who tells us that in this election “We enjoy health and life” when you look at red.
Benito Arruñada published a book last November whose central thesis is that our institutions will not fail only because of politicians, as long as they do not reflect our own preferences as citizens. Keep it right. But there is more insight into the argument that Montero’s case illuminates with particular poignancy: the decline of elites is not simply the result of citizens’ bad preferences.
It is also the result of a system that has had every incentive to produce exactly this type of elite over the decades. A system where loyalty is rewarded more than competence, where the price of inaction over corruption is clear, where culture is freed from reading summaries.
Loopholes that explain the decline of elites don’t require villains. It is only necessary for each actor to respond rationally to the incentives available to him.
And when this happens long enough, the result is similar You cannot produce anything more than a bad candidate.
On May 17, the Andalusians will decide. But the most interesting question is not about the foot or the leg. This guy, on whatever side, has a real incentive to wonder how he got here. Since the opening is twisted, the answer to this question is also the best available.
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