Una nube de fotógrafos y cámaras de televisión lo esperaba a las puertas del salón de plenos del Hospital de las Cinco Llagas en una imagen que dejó este miércoles constancia definitiva de la apertura de un nuevo ciclo político en Andalucía. Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla (PP) fue elegido presidente de la Junta por 59 votos a favor y 50 votos en contra (ninguna abstención) tras un pleno de investidura de tono bronco en el que, por primera vez en la historia de la autonomía, el PSOE-A se estrenó como partido de la oposición. Y si hubo una fotografía que ilustra la trascendencia del cambio surgido del 2D fue ésta de Moreno -que hace sólo mes y medio estaba al borde del desahucio político- convertido en el centro del foco mediático y codiciado por los principales entrevistadores del prime time de la televisión en España.

Juanma Moreno -malagueño nacido en Barcelona, 48 años- recibió los apoyos pactados de los diputados de su partido (26), de Ciudadanos (21) y de Vox (12), la formación de Santiago Abascal, que irrumpe así en la política andaluza y se ha convertido en el eje argumental de la izquierda parlamentaria, que acusa al nuevo presidente andaluz de haberse echado «en brazos de la derecha radical y populista».

La votación, nominal e in voce, se desarrolló según lo previsto, con la única incidencia destacable de la ausencia de la portavoz de Adelante Andalucía, Teresa Rodríguez, que se sintió indispuesta a primera hora de la tarde y tuvo que delegar su voto para evitar volver al salón de pleno tras el receso del mediodía. Rodríguez se encuentra ya en su séptimo mes de embarazo y sufrió una bajada de azúcar.

«Creo que la humildad ha derrotado a la soberbia», dijo Moreno Bonilla minutos antes de la votación, cuando respondía a la portavoz del PSOE, Susana Díaz, a la que acusó de alentar el «discurso del miedo». El candidato insistió en la trascendencia del acto («este momento huele a historia») y pidió el voto para «iniciar un nuevo estilo» de gobernar y «abrir puertas y ventanas». El cara a cara de Moreno con Díaz, probablemente el más esperado de esta segunda sesión del debate de investidura, colocó a ambos adversarios en papeles contrarios a los desempeñados en la última legislatura, lo que dio lugar a algún desliz formal del candidato y a algunas burlas en la bancada socialista, donde Susana Díaz le recordaba con gestos y entre carcajadas cuál era ahora su rol en la Cámara. Esa confusión que los diputados de ambas formaciones se tomaron a broma proporcionó el momento más relajado del debate, tras cuatro horas de duras intervenciones, con Vox y su afán revisionista en el centro de todos los discursos.

Susana Díaz reprochó a Moreno que comparara el proceso que se abre ahora en Andalucía con la Transición española: «Adolfo Suárez enterró la dictadura y usted ha pactado con los herederos del franquismo», le espetó, tras rechazar que haya parangón posible entre un relevo de gobierno «en un contexto de normalidad democrática» y el paso de una dictadura a la democracia. «No voy a dudar ni por un momento de la legitimidad de su gobierno, pero no ponga en duda tampoco la legitimidad de los gobiernos anteriores».

Díaz, como antes había hecho también Teresa Rodríguez, utilizó la idea de que existe un «acuerdo oculto» con Vox, lo que justifica, a su juicio, las movilizaciones celebradas el martes. «Es un tiempo de cambio, pero de cambio a peor», afirmó la jefa de la oposición, que reivindicó su gestión en los últimos cinco años, tan cuestionada en el discurso de Moreno, y se mostró dispuesta a seguir defendiéndola en la nueva etapa. «Aquí estaré para rendir cuentas», recordó como un aviso a navegantes. También a los de su partido.

La socialista destronada abundó en las cuestiones más peliagudas del pacto del PP con Vox y pidió al futuro presidente que aclare si piensa derogar la Ley de la Memoria Democrática después de haber citado en su discurso a Lorca y Blas Infante, «fusilados ambos y en ambos en las fosas por el franquismo». Díaz se mostró implacable con el nuevo gobierno de PP y Ciudadanos pero rehusó adoptar un tono de despedida o fin de ciclo, como si estuviera convencida de que lo que se abre en Andalucía es sólo un paréntesis.

Pero si alguien no defraudó fue precisamente el portavoz de Vox. La intervención de Francisco Serrano, con Santiago Abascal en la tribuna de invitados, dibujó a un partido «perseguido» y víctima del «terrorismo callejero» que, sin embargo, «ha venido para quedarse». Reivindicó los puntos más controvertidos de su ideario, destacando su oposición a las políticas contra la violencia de género y ofreciéndose como ejemplo de la «persecución» sufrida por parte de la «ideología de género», tras recordar que se ha convertido en «el único juez de Europa condenado por prevaricación culposa» por su actuación en el conocido como caso del niño nazareno, relacionado con la custodia de un menor. «Como resultado de un efecto mariposa, aquella historia del niño nazareno me ha traído finalmente a esta tribuna».

El apoyo de Vox a la investidura de Moreno le ha dado a la oposición socialista y a Adelante Andalucía la artillería argumental suficiente para construir su discurso en torno al papel de «los herederos del franquismo» en el nuevo Ejecutivo de la coalición. Además, aunque en el acuerdo alcanzado entre el PP y Vox no hay ninguna referencia a la derogación o reforma de la Ley de Violencia de Género, la sola intención manifestada por Vox de pelearla en el Parlamento ha sido suficiente para generar un ambiente de alerta general en la izquierda y los movimientos feministas, que volvieron a echarse a la calle el martes con concentraciones de miles de personas en ciudades de toda España que, en el caso de Sevilla, fueron apoyadas con autobuses fletados por el PSOE. Ese ruido de la calle contra cualquier retroceso en la lucha contra la violencia de género ha sido el marco de un debate de brocha gorda y dialéctica de trinchera.

La portavoz de Adelante Andalucía desplegó su habitual discurso de clase, acusando al de Moreno de ser un «gobierno para ricos». Y tuvo el acierto de incidir en la principal debilidad del programa negociado, que es la ausencia de un cálculo del coste de las medidas comprometidas. Rodríguez reclamó al futuro presidente que explique cómo va a gestionar el «agujero fiscal» que se abre con el recorte de impuestos y la batería de gastos anunciados.

Sólo Ciudadanos, como cabía esperar, dio oxígeno al candidato. Juan Marín desplegó optimismo anunciando «el fin de las malas noticias para los andaluces» y dedicó un guiño de complicidad al socio: «Se abre ante nosotros una oportunidad histórica. Tenemos que hacerlo bien, señor Moreno».</s>MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists will on Wednesday lose power in their southern stronghold of Andalusia and be replaced by an unprecedented coalition of the conservatives and the liberals with the support of the far right.

The Socialists came first in December's local election but failed to secure a majority, and as a result the Popular Party’s Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla is expected to be elected as Andalusia’s president.

Lawmakers from the conservative PP, the liberal Ciudadanos and the far-right Vox — who together command an absolute majority of the chamber — have vowed to back Moreno Bonilla’s bid for power and put an end to 36 years of uninterrupted Socialist rule.

The conservatives have reached deals with Ciudadanos and Vox. The former will get half the Cabinet positions, including the vice-presidency. The later won't be in office but will gain political clout.

In a speech presenting his candidacy to lawmakers Tuesday, Moreno Bonilla said: “I’m aware the coalition government which we have agreed between the Popular Party and Ciudadanos doesn’t command the absolute majority of this parliament and that’s why ... I have reached an investiture agreement with Vox, to achieve change and provide stability.”

On Tuesday, thousands of people attended rallies in Seville and other towns and cities across the country organized by feminist groups to protest against the new government under the slogan “not a single step backward.”

Here are five ways in which the new government will change local and national politics.

Vox is not an Andalusian anomaly.

Polls, analysts and party insiders all predict the far right will expand nationally this year. The first test will come in May, when Spain faces local, regional and European elections.

The traditional Spanish two-party system of Socialists and conservatives ended in 2015 with the rise of Ciudadanos and the far-left Podemos. It will now become even more complicated.

Ignacio Jurado, an analyst for political consultancy Quantio, said increased polarization and the volatility of the political landscape have made ruling the country more difficult. That's not going to change.

2. A new challenge on the right

The PP and Ciudadanos have reacted differently to the rise of Vox.

The PP’s young, energetic leader Pablo Casado has shifted his party to the right to compete with the newcomer. Casado has hardened the party's tone on migration, for example, and given new emphasis to defending traditions such as bullfighting and hunting.

His plan is to convince Vox voters — many of them PP defectors — that Spain’s main conservative party remains their home. “We’ll have to ask Vox if they’re playing at being the PP,” Casado said in a radio interview last week. “The PP is the original.”

Ciudadanos, however, seems embarrassed to be in power thanks to the backing of the far right.

The liberals have refused to meet with Vox’s representatives or discuss a legislative program with them. “There’s no agreement with the far right,” Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera told reporters last week, labeling the document agreed by the PP and Vox “waste paper.”

Looking to the future, the PP has vowed to replicate the three-party agreement in other regions and at the national level, while Ciudadanos has said it would work with the PP or the Socialists, but doesn't want agreements with left- or right-wing extremists.

The ballot in Andalusia was a setback for the Socialists, but Sánchez has seized on the opportunity to attack the PP and Ciudadanos for siding with Vox.

Sánchez is framing the current political climate as a fight between “black and white Spain” — represented by “the three rights” of the PP, Ciudadanos and Vox — and his progressive, feminist and pro-European government.

In a rally over the weekend in Barcelona, the Spanish PM warned the country is facing a crossroads. “There are three rights in Spain with a single goal: involution,” he said. “We say no … it’s time to mobilize.”

While Sánchez seems to have dropped his earlier emphasis on a “more humane” approach to migration, he has doubled down on feminism.

“The government of Spain has made it clear: without feminism, there’s no democracy,” he tweeted Monday, as feminist organizations protested in the streets against the new Andalusian government.

4. Catalonia, the budget and the general election

The Andalusian result seems to have convinced Sánchez to drop plans for an immediate snap election. Sánchez vowed over the weekend to keep ruling until 2020 — yet he’s made many contradictory statements on the issue and rivals and analysts say he may still call an early ballot this year.

Sánchez’s big bet for political survival is the country’s new budget, which is full of social spending increases.

The Spanish Cabinet last Friday approved the draft 2019 budget law and the national parliament will discuss it in the coming weeks. Sánchez needs the support of Catalan pro-independence parties, among others, to have it approved in Congress, which isn’t guaranteed.

Sánchez’s conundrum is that he needs the support of the separatists to get anything done in parliament, but that support — and the ammunition it gives to his rivals — has proven lethal for his Socialists when people go to the ballot box.

“El golpismo tiene premio” [Subversion brings rewards] was the front page of conservative newspaper Abc when Sánchez unveiled the budget plan featuring increased investments in Catalonia aimed at winning the parliamentary backing of pro-independence parties.

“Sánchez doesn't have any alternative,” said analyst Jurado, arguing the prime minister realizes an early election will be self-defeating while his only chance at getting things done in parliament is with the help of Catalan separatists.

In any case, Sánchez is trying to fight back. “Some say being a patriot is shouting everyday ‘long live Spain,’” he told a rally on Sunday. “We say being a patriot is working every day for people in Spain to live better.”

Andalusia’s Moreno Bonilla was all but dead, politically.

He battled against Casado in the PP's internal power contest over the summer and remained the conservatives’ candidate in Andalusia mainly because there wasn't time to find a replacement.

Moreno Bonilla then obtained the worst PP result in the region in decades, losing 30 percent of votes from the previous election in 2015. He also saw his right-of-center rivals Ciudadanos and Vox grow.

Yet despite winning little more than 20 percent of the vote, he will become the first conservative president of Andalusia in Spain’s four-decade-long democracy.

What’s more, some see in Moreno Bonilla a precedent for what may happen in other regions and at the national level: Even if the Socialists come first, a weakened PP may gain power if it manages to coordinate support from Vox and Ciudadanos.</s>MADRID — Thousands are protesting what they perceive as a threat to women’s equality and protection from a deal to bring a right-wing coalition to power in Spain’s populous Andalusia region that relies on support from an anti-feminist far-right party.

Protesters have surrounded the parliament in Seville, the regional capital, where the conservative candidate to head the Andalusia government, the Popular Party’s Juan Manuel Moreno, is delivering his investiture speech.

Moreno is posed to be sworn in on Wednesday with the support of the centre-right Citizens party, which is taking key cabinet positions, and Vox, the far-right party that wants to scrap domestic abuse laws as well as cracking down on illegal migration and weakening the European Union.

The new cabinet ends 36 years of Socialist rule in the region.</s>The Popular Party has done very well out of the results of the elections in Andalusia, their worst ever with just 21 percent of the vote.

Juanma Moreno, spun as Mariano Rajoy’s candidate by the new leader’s team during the campaign (he was expected to be replaced), gets to govern the 8.4 million citizens in Spain’s most populous region from this week, following a confidence vote in the regional parliament today.

Diario Sur reports the outgoing socialists have organised busloads of feminists to protest outside the door. It will be the first time the PSOE has not governed in its southern heartland since the early 1980s.

After weeks of negotiations with Vox and Ciudadanos, the result is as most expected it to be on election night: the Popular Party will lead the coalition government, Ciudadanos gets the Deputy First Minister’s job and a few other briefs, and controls the regional chamber via the Speaker’s Committee, and Vox will support from parliament and has had some of its manifesto points included in the programme for government, in a document negotiated last week with the PP. Vox is electoral kryptonite for Ciudadanos, which hardly wants to mention the party, never mind place its signature next to Mr. Abascal’s brand on the same piece of paper for posterity.

Two polls out over the past few days (El Español, Electomania) suggest why that might be the case: Ciudadanos and Popular Party voters are not very far from Vox positions at all on either illegal immigration or gender violence laws, two of the new party’s most controversial media issues. 86.5 percent of Ciudadanos voters and 82.1 percent of PP voters would like to see illegal immigrants deported. 98 percent of PP voters and 93 percent of Ciudadanos voters would like to see some level of reform of gender violence legislation. Vox wants to repeal existing laws and introduce new ones that talk of domestic or “intrafamily” violence. Ciudadanos wants to promote current legislation and provide much more public funding for it.

This is not so much of a problem for the Popular Party, which is trying to regain favour among the growing Vox crowd—”the PP is the original version”, Pablo Casado said yesterday during a radio interview—but it poses a brand management problem for Albert Rivera, because Ciudadanos is supposed to be liberal reformist, not immigrant bashing anti-feminist.

A detailed look at the documents each party has negotiated with the PP shows that out of more than 150 discernible policy points, the three parties only seem to agree on five things: lowering inheritance and income taxes, promoting education for 16-18 year olds in mostly Catholic public-private schools, allowing parents to freely choose the schools their children attend, encouraging better work-life balance for busy parents…and protecting flamenco.

There are another five areas where they could probably get something useful done even if they are not in complete agreement at this early stage: reining in regional commercial offices abroad, slashing public funding for NGOs, slimming down regional bureaucracy, cutting costs at Canal Sur, the regional public TV station, and providing more funds to the police to deal with immigration.

This last point could be very conflictive. Vox says the regional health service will be handing over details of temporary ID documents for 52,000 illegal immigrants to the police so that they can do their work applying existing immigration legislation. The actual wording of the agreement with the PP is fuzzier and says the new regional executive will provide “documentary support” to the police for “border control”.

Two National Police unions put out a statement on Friday backing Vox on the numbers and saying they would welcome such a measure. They publicly accused the outgoing administration of “institutional disloyalty” towards the central government on the matter.

The PP has also agreed with Vox to set up a new regional families ministry, which will include more support for women with unwanted pregnancies (an anti-abortion policy), tax cuts for big families (a nod to Catholics), and a regional adoption plan.

The PP-Vox document, though, leaves out any mention of what might well be Mr. Abascal’s most radical suggestion for Spain: getting rid of Spanish regional governments and parliaments altogether, a policy position that has some logic to it depending on one’s diagnosis of the root causes of the Catalan separatist crisis but which has already generated vociferous rejection from regional nationalists and establishment constitutionalists alike. Given the 1978 Constitution contains articles and procedures allowing for its complete reform, the notion is not unconstitutional per se, as long as Vox were to gather the required amount of support and go about the process in the proper way. The PP-Ciudadanos document, though, calls for a defence of the status quo.

The right, which is now split three ways, is about to try to prove it can do governing coalitions in Spain, within the limits of the current system (so no fascism or tyranny, despite the panicked messaging from Podemos or the PSOE).

This bodes badly for the left as Spain gets to grips with five- or six-party politics, and there are only four months to go until all of the other elections in May, with the possibility of an early general election too.

Matthew Bennett is the creator of The Spain Report. You can read more of his writing on Patreon, and follow him on Twitter. Don't miss his podcast series with weekly in-depth analysis on Spain.

READ MORE: ANALYSIS: 2019 in Spanish politics - How much creative destruction will Vox unleash?</s>Spain’s powerful feminist movement rallied across the country on Tuesday against far-right party Vox for seeking to scrap tough laws against gender violence which it argues “criminalises” men.

Thousands of people, mainly women, gathered outside Andalusia’s regional parliament in Seville, where Vox will Wednesday endorse a conservative coalition government made up of the Popular Party and Ciudadanos, putting an end to 36 years of Socialist rule in Spain’s most populous region.

The demonstrators — many wearing purple, a colour long associated with gender equality — chanted “Our rights are not negotiable”.

Crowds gathered across the country in the evening for protests against Vox, notably in the capital Madrid and Barcelona, the country’s second-largest city.

“We have to keep fighting with all means at our disposal against machismo violence,” said Seville campaigner Isabel Britos, 48.

The main slogan for the protests called by feminist groups is: “No step backwards in terms of equality”.

The party says these laws encourage unfounded complaints against men by women “without scruples”.

Vox, which also campaigns against illegal immigration, has also called for an end to “subsidised radical feminist associations”.

The party won a surprising 12 seats in Andalusia’s parliament in a regional election last month.

It initially made scrapping Spain’s gender violence laws a condition for its support for a Popular Party-Ciudadanos coalition government in the region, prompting an outcry. It eventually dropped the demand.

“Denying gender violence and the need for policies of equality is a radical position which is outside of democratic norms,” Socialist Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said Tuesday.

Vox’s leader in Andalusia, Francisco Serrano, sparked new controversy earlier Tuesday by calling the feminist mobilisation “kale borroka” — a reference to street violence by youths who supported the armed Basque separatist group ETA in Spain’s northern Basque Country.

Vox’s performance last month in Andalusia was the first time a far-right party has won representation in a Spanish regional parliament since the country returned to democracy following the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco in 1975.

It has reshuffled the political cards in Spain with polls showing that Vox along with the PP and Ciudadanos could win a majority at the national level as well.

The Spanish parliament in 2004 unanimously passed Europe’s first law specifically cracking down on gender-based violence that offered free legal aid and established special courts for victims.

Around 50 women are killed each year in Spain by their romantic partner or former partner.

Each death receives intense media coverage and is condemned by parties across the political spectrum.

The protests against Vox come less than two months before feminist groups in Spain mark International Women’s Day on March 8 with another strike.

Last year over five million men and women took part in an unprecedented two-hour strike held on International Women’s Day.</s>MADRID (AP) — Spain’s far-right Vox party has staked its claim to a place in the political mainstream, dropping its more extremist positions to help form a regional government in Andalusia as far-right parties build…

MADRID (AP) — Spain’s far-right Vox party has staked its claim to a place in the political mainstream, dropping its more extremist positions to help form a regional government in Andalusia as far-right parties build their influence across Europe.

The anti-migrant, anti-feminist and euroskeptic party played kingmaker by supporting an alliance of the conservative Popular Party and the center-right Citizens party that is poised to end 36 years of center-left Socialist party rule in Spain’s most populated region.

Vox initially demanded the deportation of 52,000 immigrants and the scrapping of tough laws protecting women from domestic abuse in return for its 12 votes in the 109-member Andalusian parliament.

But the Popular Party and Citizens party balked at those terms, and they didn’t feature in a deal announced late Wednesday.

Support for the four-year-old Vox party surged in the Andalusian elections last month, making it the first far-right party to secure parliamentary seats since Spain installed a democratic system of government following dictator Gen. Francisco Franco’s 1975 death. It won’t have a seat in the new Andalusian government, however.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal tweeted that his party had “consolidated its success by demonstrating its useful role in bringing about change.”

The party’s strategy is to make a dent in national politics and European elections in March.

The Andalusian developments agitated politics in the eurozone’s fourth largest economy as parties gear up for a general election that could be held as early as this year.

Being unseated in Andalusia, in a vote expected in coming days, deals a severe blow to the Socialist party which runs the country with a minority government.

The Popular Party, meanwhile, is taking the risk of being linked with an extremist party. While it rejected Vox’s more extreme demands, the Popular Party agreed to keep bullfighting legal despite calls for its prohibition and gave an undertaking not to introduce any measures that might encourage illegal immigration.

Vox has made the fight against illegal immigration one of its headline policies. The European Union says about 57,000 migrants crossed from North Africa to Spain last year — double the figure for 2017.

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The Andalusian parliament elects Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla as the next regional President with the votes of conservative party PP, liberal party Cs and far-right party Vox, ending a 36-year term, since the restoration of democracy, of social democratic PSOE government.