The call precipitates the most difficult change of Government: replacing María Jesús Montero | Andalusia Elections

Things have gone faster than expected, although Pedro Sánchez has been mulling over this decision for a long time, one of the most difficult of his various Government crises. The call for the Andalusian elections, much earlier than expected, forces the president to make a very difficult change, replacing María Jesús Montero as number two in the Executive, first vice president and Minister of Finance.

Almost everything in the Executive goes through three people: Pedro Sánchez, Montero and Félix Bolaños. The Minister of Finance is behind all the negotiations, she works tirelessly seven days a week, she is always involved in everything, as was demonstrated this Friday, when she was the one who negotiated with Sumar, supported by Sánchez, to unblock the Council of Ministers that Yolanda Díaz’s group paralyzed for more than two hours to incorporate the extension of rents.

“Change is coming,” Montero herself said in an interview on Hora 25 on the SER network. “The first measure I will take will be to improve healthcare.” The still vice president of the Government has also emphasized housing and education as basic pillars of her program. “Moreno Bonilla has not done anything in Housing.”

It was Sánchez who decided that Montero left Madrid to go to Andalusia, and presumably at that moment he already began to think about how to relieve her. But he has not shared it with anyone, or at least that is what the various sources consulted claim. Even so, within the Executive and the PSOE there are many speculations, some of them more solid than others, and almost all of them indicate that Bolaños will increase his power, because now he will have to lead alone the negotiations that until now he always carried out with Montero – and before with Santos Cerdán, who closed Sánchez’s negotiating triangle, to which José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and now Antonio Hernando sometimes join in a more discreet way.

That Bolaños will ascend is almost certain, although it is not clear if he will become first vice president, a quite logical move given that he already controls the Council of Ministers by chairing the commission of undersecretaries. It was a job that Carmen Calvo did at the time when she was first vice president, but that neither Nadia Calviño nor Montero never did.

Bolaños thus almost has the functions of vice president, but it does not seem clear that Sánchez wants to give her that formal category because until now the position of first vice president in his governments has always been occupied by a woman.

For Montero’s most economic and least political powers, that is, the Ministry of Finance, the name that is most repeated in all the internal speculations is that of Carlos Body, the Minister of Economy.

Body is a technician; He is by contrast a State economist, he comes from a humble family who emigrated to Switzerland and has developed his academic career in public universities; He does not come from the traditional political background of the party, but has risen as an expert with Nadia Calviño as minister until he managed to succeed her. Since then, he has been expanding his power, his political profile and his trust with Sánchez, who in recent weeks has placed him in the front row of conversations with unions, with businessmen, and in the preparation and explanation of measures to alleviate the effects of the war in Iran.

The PP ignored Corpus for months, and did not even ask him questions in Congress because the popular ones do not seem to be particularly interested in the clash with the Government on the economy, but he has been little by little looking for forums to try to improve his political profile and has also grown in knowledge on the decisive social networks with videos in which he spoke in Japanese and other striking issues.

Corps has been gaining more and more prominence within the Government and it is he who has most clearly confronted Yolanda Díaz over ideological issues, as Nadia Calviño did before, especially in the reduction of working hours, for example. It is, therefore, the natural bet to replace Montero in the Treasury, even with a merger with Economy, something that has already happened in the past with the PP, although Sánchez could always surprise and choose another person to direct the big box of the State, like the current Secretary of State, Jesús Gascón, and leave Corps in Economy.

There are thus two unknowns to be resolved: one, whether Sánchez will look for a woman for the first vice presidency, and who it will be – the president recently opted to give more visibility to Elma Sáiz by placing her as spokesperson; and above all if the movement will limit itself to replacing Montero or the president will take the opportunity to carry out a broader remodeling that some sectors of the PSOE are waiting for because there are several very burned out or very unknown ministers.

In La Moncloa they point out that the latter is not planned and that the president has given clear signs that he only plans to replace Montero when he has no other choice, this is now, because the Andalusian elections have been called, but he is satisfied with the Government and is not thinking of doing as in 2021, when he changed almost the entire hard core and gave the Executive a deep tumble.

It is not what the consulted sources expect in La Moncloa, but Sánchez is the only one who has all the information and can really do what he wants because there is no longer any counterpower in the PSOE enough for the president to have to balance against his will.

Everything is, therefore, in Sánchez’s hands, but what is certain is that this is the most important and most difficult change within the Government in this legislature. Montero has been a support for Sánchez from the beginning and, with the fall of all the others, only she and Bolaños remained as key people in the hard core from the beginning. Now only the Minister of Justice will remain, and it will soon be known with what powers.