The extraordinary regularization of immigrants, which the Council of Ministers approves this Tuesday, bursts into the Andalusian pre-campaign as an alien element to territorial logic. Promoted from Moncloa, where they remain convinced that it is a useful “weapon” to mobilize their electorate, the measure responds to a national political calculation that the Andalusian PSOE accepts with discomfort, convinced that it does not provide votes, introduces noise and can alter balances in an already adverse scenario. Regularization once again introduces an element of high ideological content that allows the axis of the debate to be shifted, but what is not so clear to the socialist ranks is its territorial impact.
In the Andalusian PSOE the reading is more pragmatic. The recent experience, as seen in Aragón, has consolidated the perception that the immigration debate no longer favors the left when it is transferred to the campaign. They believe that it mobilizes only a part of the electorate, specifically, the most ideological voter (urban, young, progressive), reinforces identity in a time of wear and tear and serves to reconnect with the Sumar electorate and its environment. That is, it mobilizes the convinced. But this hardening of the immigration debate is no longer a guarantee for the left: “it reinforces the mobilization of an already loyal voter, but it has little capacity to attract moderate or undecided profiles, and it can generate rejection in segments sensitive to pressure on public services or the labor market.”
This is the central concern in the territorial apparatus: not so much the direct effect of the measure, but its capacity to alter the campaign climate. Until now, the focus had been on regional management, especially in health, an area where the PSOE believes it can erode the Andalusian Government, although the polls do not show signs of progress in that direction. “The introduction of immigration partially displaces that axis and opens a more favorable space for the right because it finds a recognizable framework there: control, management and stability,” warns a veteran leader of the Andalusian federation.
Sánchez’s movement allows us to interpret that he seeks to offer, once again, a float to Vox, who arrived at the campaign with signs of wear and weight loss. Immigration is one of its mobilizing axes. However, today, this movement can reinforce dynamics that are not favorable to the PSOE: concentration of the vote in the PP and reactivation of Abascal’s party in specific niches.
For the federal leadership, the movement confirms that the priority is not in the Andalusian result, but in the subsequent political framework. Regularization allows the Government to reposition itself at a time when its agenda was marked by defensive factors. «We continue in the logic of controlled polarization. They do not necessarily seek to gain immediate ground, but rather to establish positions,” they point out from Seville.
In that sense, the discomfort of the Andalusian PSOE is assumed as a secondary cost. The party already operates in the community with limited expectations and with a strategy aimed at resisting rather than winning. Regularization does not change that scenario, but it does not improve it either. It simply adds one more factor of complexity in a campaign that was already conditioned by the structural advantage of the PP.
The underlying question in the PSOE is how territorial interests and the national strategy are articulated in a context of relative weakness. The decision to promote regularization shows that, at this moment, the balance leans towards the latter. The Moncloa core prioritizes its position, even at the cost of introducing tensions in regional campaigns where its room for maneuver is limited.
The design and execution of the PSOE’s political strategy are today deeply centralized in the core of Moncloawhere the team closest to Sánchez has consolidated almost total control over the party and its campaigns. It is not just about coordination, but about effective direction: Moncloa’s “gurus” set the framework, tone and times, and transfer that line to the entire organization. Key decisions – from campaign axes to legislative movements with electoral impact – are designed in that center of power, reducing the margin of autonomy of territorial structures. “It has been a long time since we stopped being a sum of sensibilities to become a vertical structure.”