Juanma Moreno (Barcelona 1970) cannot be said to have traveled an easy road to get there. A mere three-and-a-half years ago, her party had arranged for him to be removed from the middle of the political spectrum as soon as the Andalusian PP’s umpteenth electoral defeat was completed. It was not a defeat, but an historical turning. Andalusian president recalls that few believed in him. “I told journalists who accompanied us that I was going be the next president. When I left, I heard how they laughed.” Moreno claims the right to the phrase “Only those who believe that they can”
He has had a long political career, but it is important to remember the five years of desert crossing that Moreno did from March 2014, when he was elected president of Popular Party of Andalusia, until his investiture. at the Board’s head in January 2019. His personality was shaped by his underestimating of his potentials, the ridicule and rudeness he received from those who doubted him during those years. Today, Moreno has thick skin and an above-average endurance ability in the face criticism.
The current president is hardworking, persevering, and perfectionist. He was also a perfectionist at times. While still in school, he got involved in politics early. He was 24 years old when he became a councilor at Malaga City Council. At 27 he had built his strongest foundations. After traveling across Spain in a van to collect support, he was elected president of National New Generations. He was accompanied by Elias Bendodo, a young leader who would be his companion for many years in that initiatory craft campaign. It will be interesting to see if the leap of the number three of PP into national politics will lead him to fork his path.
Aznar’s PP offered him a position as Cantabria deputy in 2000. He tried again four years later, but this time for Malaga, his constituency. When he was denied a seat, he fled to the party and worked as a speechwriter and data analyst for Mariano Rajoy, who was then governed by Soraya Saenz, a rising politician from Santamaria. He was made Secretary of State for Social Services and Equality upon Rajoy’s arrival at Moncloa.
He formed a team of workers that would become his two most trusted friends, Pamela Hoyos & Ignacio Diez Bernal. Rajoy gave him the task of leading the Andalusian PP following the devastating defeat of Javier Arenas 2012 and he took them along with him. They are now close friends with Javier Salas, a journalist. Manuela Villena is the wife of Javier Salas, one of his closest friends. She is a political scientist from Granada, who has a remarkable record and shared a classroom space with many of the Andalusian PP’s most prominent leaders, including Marifran during his university years. Carazo, Jose Ramon Carmona or Patricia Navarro.
It was difficult to demolish the castle of socialist power and Andalusia, especially because a large part of the party, particularly the Sevillian group received it with nails. When Rajoy’s succession failed to favor Saenz de Santamaria but Pablo Casado was elected, the latter trying to take control of the Andalusian PP from the beginning and through the end. Moreno saw two ways through which he could weaken socialist power. The first was discretionary management of funds related employment and training. The other was the decline in the health system, which is one of Andalusian socialism’s historical flags. While the current president doesn’t talk about it, his father, who he was very close to, died from colon cancer. He implemented a universal screening program to detect this disease early. This was one of his first actions as president.
From the beginning, the president of Andalusian PP began a change that he couldn’t complete without the help of the government. Moreno is of mixed family heritage (his grandfather was a day labourer, and his parents were emigrants from Barcelona, Alhaurin el Grande), and conviction. To be hegemonic, Andalusia must have a party that can move in a centrist position and fully identify with the territory. His speeches end with the green and white flags flooding the PP rallies. The appeals to Andalusian pride, and the desire to realize all the potentialities within the autonomous community are often dominated by his final moments. This profile also includes the constant claim that Manuel Clavero Arevalo (the UCD minister who supported autonomic processes) is making. His political project requires him to review history and question the dominant role of the left on that stage.
Moreno not only wanted to change the image of his party but also his personal image. He made time for exercise and eats at least three times a week. He doesn’t have much time to read, but he took advantage of this campaign to devour ‘La Mist verde’ by Gonzalo Giner. This environmental statement won him the Fernando Lara 2020 novel prize.
Their offices’ decoration gives clues about Juanma Moreno’s political references. The Andalusian PP has a portrait by John Fitzgerald Kennedy. In San Telmo, there are two photographs of Adolfo Suearez and one of Barack Obama. There are currently no portraits of Alberto Nunez Feijoo. However, the Galician’s accession to the national presidency has created a more comfortable scene for her. Both share the idea of a decentralized party that has full autonomy from regional presidents. This combination of autonomy and affinity was what enabled him to clear up the PP lists for the elections. All traces of Casadismo, which had questioned his authority at the previous provincial congresses, have vanished. Juanma smiles but doesn’t forget.
Moreno didn’t have everything with him in his three-and-a-half years as the Junta government’s head. He was governed by 26 seats in coalition with another party, and with a parliamentary friend with whom he had negotiations until exhaustion. It is a different landscape than the one of the next four years. In which, their own advancement, the real Juanma can be seen.
