The 16th regional congress of the Andalusian PP had been organized to highlight the figure of its leader, Juan Manuel Moreno, and boast of his management in these three years marked by the pandemic and of the stability achieved at the head of the first non-socialist Government of the Junta of Andalusia. The popular Andalusians wanted the community to be the center of national politics this weekend to show that the change in this territory was the prelude to what Pablo Casado could achieve in the rest of the country. The leaks at the beginning of the week of the conversation of the Andalusian vice president and territorial spokesman for Citizens, Juan Marín, in which he called it “stupid” for the Board to approve the budgets in an electoral year, fueling the debate on an electoral advance to which Moreno resist, they have muted that triumphalist message and the absolute prominence of Moreno on the weekend of his second re-election as president of the popular Andalusians.

“This was not the planned script, but we must try to make it happen as soon as possible,” acknowledges to EL PAÍS an interlocutor close to the president of the PP. To heal the crisis of confidence opened within the Andalusian Executive after Marín’s statements – after three years in which the partners of the Andalusian Government, PP and Cs, have not shown significant cracks – and prevent the noise from spreading Throughout the weekend, the organization has staged the unit with a talk on a sofa chester —Which was not included in the program— between the vice president and the Board’s spokesman, Elías Bendodo, bringing forward to this Friday —the opening day— the visit of the Cs leader, which was scheduled for Saturday. “This is how we settled the controversy when before,” says an interlocutor from the PP who denies that the change of date has to do with the presence on Saturday of the organization secretary Teodoro García Egea, whom, veiled, Marín pointed out this week as one of the main interested in an electoral advance in Andalusia.

Marín has arrived shortly before Moreno, and accompanied by the spokesman for the Junta and the Andalusian PP, Elías Bendodo, amid the expectation of the media and the surprise of some members of New Generations, surprised that the leader of another party came to the congress of the popular. Shortly afterwards Moreno arrived who sat next to the vice president of the Board, in another attempt to stage that unit.

During the half-hour talk, both leaders made an effort to highlight all the achievements that the coalition government has achieved and the good harmony between both parties. “They said the pact was going to be broken,” Bendodo said. “The secret has been encapsulation,” Marín responded, referring to the strategy that both formations have adopted to prevent crises at the national level from affecting the coalition, the most evident when, after the threat of a motion of censure in Murcia , Moreno and Marín signed a document in which they pledged not to admit members of the other party into their ranks —to avoid that in Andalusia the flight of positions from Cs to the PP was replicated. “We have had many storms in electoral terms,” ​​Marín explained.

Along the lines of staging this harmony within the Governing Council, Bendodo has drawn attention to the fact that sometimes it is not clear which councilors are from which party. Marín has drawn a soccer simile and has compared the coalition with the soccer team. “We are players from different teams, but we play with the same strategy.” The vice president has issued a warning to sailors: “Until the next elections arrive where each one of us will play our own game and respect the rules of the game.” Moreno this morning in an interview at the Ideal in Granada invited Ciudadanos to join his party in the next elections, renewing that joint candidacy that was discussed at the time. “We have a political project with a lot of personality and a historical trajectory, but I am willing to add. This effort for Andalusia surpasses any political party ”, said the president.

With this improvised meeting in which Bendodo wished Marín luck at his party’s congress, the crisis caused by the leaks has been closed to rescue the role that Moreno claims in his regional congress. The president of the popular also sought to settle the controversy by circumscribing the problem to Ciudadanos and denying that there is a division within the PP – doubts that Marín himself generated by stating on Wednesday that those who benefited from the leaks were those who wanted an electoral advance and he pointed to Genoa directly, although later he declined and held responsible only the person who recorded his statements. “There is no problem in the PP and did not comment on the problems of other formations,” said the Andalusian president before entering the plenary. Shortly after, Pablo Montesinos, PP’s deputy secretary of Communication, assured that it is Moreno who is responsible for calling elections whenever he wants. “That is the position of the PP and Pablo Casado”, has settled.

From the national leadership of the party they downplay the importance of Marín’s presence in the PP congress and blame it on the cordiality that exists between both parties in the Andalusian coalition government. And they remember that members of the PP have also been invited on other occasions to Citizens’ events. “If you govern with the PP in Andalusia, it is normal that [Marín] go to an event of the Andalusian PP. It is a way of expressing that good harmony ”, underlines a member of the Cs leadership. “If they had not done the grace to annoy him with the leak, Marín would not be news today,” he adds, reports Virgina Martínez.