Felipe Gonzalez pays tribute to Alfonso Guerra the great absentee

Felipe González pays tribute to Alfonso Guerra, the great absentee of the PSOE celebrations in Seville

Perhaps Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra were unaware of what it means for the two to rally in Seville. Together. The billboards announced their names in typographic characters that are no longer used today. First González’s, then Guerra’s, and then a third party’s. In 1982 people, not just those of the PSOE, didn’t go to the rallies because they were carted away. You were alone. to hear González and Guerra. The closing rally of the 1982 election campaign, González’s 120th in 30 days, took place in Seville’s Prado de San Sebastián: Two days later, on October 28, the Socialists had 202 seats in the House of Representatives.

The PSOE stole the opportunity from its fighters to take part in a new meeting of the two in Seville, as part of the events organized by this party to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the PSOE’s absolute majority victory in the 1982 general elections, the first victory a left-wing party since the Second Republic. “History is history,” proclaimed one veteran activist testily.

And it was Felipe González who remembered who was by his side on that historic night of October 28, 1982 as he climbed onto the podium. “Today we commemorate and commemorate; and to remember is to do it with the heart. I’m trying, and I’m sorry I can’t, to look for that strange person who raised my hand in the window of the house [hotel] Palace that was Alfonso Guerra. And I want to hold it in this hand and commemorate it,” he said, earning loud applause from the audience. Pedro Sánchez casually limited himself to quoting “Alfonso” when enumerating the purpose of that time to transform the country from beginning to end.

More information

Alfonso Guerra was not invited to attend either the Seville event or the one in Madrid. “They didn’t invite me, it’s certain that I wasn’t in the direction of the party, they will see it that way and they stand by this vision,” he assured in an interview with Canal Sur.

The official version circulating in the PSOE says that invitations to party rallies are not issued. And if Guerra wanted to attend, “he would have called on the phone” to reserve a front-row seat, federal leadership sources affirmed. The resulting uproar forced the PSOE to call the party’s former number two and the government to formally invite him. The person in charge of the call was number two in the Seville group, not even the provincial secretary. The war has not come.

What affects most is what happens next. Subscribe so you don’t miss anything.

Subscribe to

The commemoration of four decades of socialist victory in Seville has long been the largest event organized by socialists in Andalusia. They couldn’t even call a rally with 4,000 people like today for the regional elections. This requires significant mobilization efforts and also economic resources, which the Andalusian PSOE cannot boast of having lost the Andalusian government at the end of 2018.

Half of Pedro Sánchez’s government attended the commemoration in the Andalusian capital, which was also attended by party leader Cristina Narbona; Finance Minister María Jesús Montero; the Mayor of Seville, Antonio Muñoz; and the Secretary General of the Andalusian PSOE, Juan Espadas. The last three were not eligible to vote in 1982.

Subscribe to continue reading

read limitless