I don't usually talk about other peoples' business. If I am doing so now, it is because we are involved —unintentionally— in Andalusian affairs. We find ourselves involved in them, especially economically speaking. It has also been a campaign in which we have been insulted. The assertions stated by PP's biped should cause many Catalans to wake up once and for all —if, after that incident, there is still someone who isn't convinced, then maybe they should get their head examined —. I mean if that man had substituted Catalan for Arab, Catalonia for Mecca and Albert for Mohammed, the next day Catalonia’s progressives would have organized a demonstration in protest against it. Alas, since that fool only practised xenophobia against the Catalans, the incident is deemed no more than "an anecdote which proves the right-wing's evil arts".
Without a doubt, I am more worried about the way Catalans are behaving than the way the Spanish are. About the results, I just want to say that I'm surprised that anybody is actually surprised. I was not shocked by the fact that the PSOE won. These people have invested a lot of time and money (ours) into it. A setup of this magnitude cannot be knocked down overnight. Especially when everyone's interests are involved, including the public's. The surprise that it has caused is partly due to the fact that, despite the corruption that has overtaken the PSOE in Andalusia, there has been no electoral punishment. It seems that a large part of the population deems the PSOE's actions as positive. Is this corruption perceived as valid by the population because it has led to social benefits?
The most worrying, most serious form of corruption, the one that can pervert a social system, is not the one that is in the newspapers, the one involving great sums of money all at once . It is not the one that makes one person rich. The kind of corruption where a politician collects backhanders or bribes is not the most worrisome, even though it should be severely punished —to set an example, so that it doesn't spread—. No, sir. The most serious form of corruption is the one that has spread everywhere, slowly but surely. That is the cancer that, due to the very fact that it doesn't kill us off, gets us accustomed to living with it. It is the one that is perceived as a necessary evil, the only one which can get the economy functioning and can get things moving. The one that makes building a bridge in Sicily three times more more expensive than building one in Lombardy.
The Andalusia of the Transition has not needed a nationalistic party because they've had the PSOE. They were the ones pressurizing for Andalusia to be considered a historic nationality —dismantling constitutional intentions and smearing the extended autonomous system that now brings us so many headaches—. If Catalonia’s socialists had defended our interests in the same way that Andalusian socialists have, it's very likely that our current economic and territorial demands would be less necessary. Obviously, the equation couldn't possibly add up: if you give someone 110%, then you have to give someone else 90%. Alas, the PSOE's strategy has not only meant that the Catalans have been robbed — something which the PSC didn't report as and when they should have— but, as we have just discovered, has also consisted of pulling the wool over Europe's eyes.
In Andalusia pretty much everyone has partaken in the celebrations organized by PSOE so it would seem stupid, now, to turn against their patron. Wouldn't you say? Unemployment in Andalusia is currently at 35%, but in 2006 —the last prosperous year— it stood at 13%. At this moment, a quarter of the unemployed are public sector workers. With this I want to point out that it isn't just because that you find yourself with a society with these unemployment rates which, at the same time, enjoys all the social advantages that the West has to offer. This balance is impossible to achieve without an obvious clientelism and voters who, in the face of corruption cases involving miracle workers, look the other way because they don't want to rock the boat. Because they are hoping to get handout here or there.
Some people forgot that the electoral battle in Andalusia is tainted by political clientelism, too. They forgot that caciquism in Andalusia has, in part, passed from landowners' hands to the hands of political parties. Votes are bought, but the ways of doing so are more sophisticated nowadays. It was hasty to think that Podemos' and Ciutadans' populism would gain rapid appeal in Andalusia. Anyone who works in the private sector is well aware of how difficult it is to enter a market that is already occupied by someone else.
