President of Andalucia calls early elections

HEAD of the Andalucian PSOE socialist party and president of the Andalucia Region, Susana Diaz, has called early elections.

Ms Diaz has decided to sign the decree of the current government’s dissolution and call elections for March 22, after she claimed the three-year coalition with Izquierda Unida (IU, the united left party) had proved too unstable.

The head of Izquierda Unida in Andalucia, Antonio Maillo, received the call from the president at around 9pm yesterday (Sunday January 25), after which she contacted the head of the PSOE central branch, Pedro Sanchez, to inform him of her decision.

Relations between Ms Diaz and Mr Maillo have never been easy.

On Friday, both leaders held a meeting where the regional president explained the circumstances that, she believed, had lead to instabilities in the pact.

Amongst others is the decision of IU to conduct a referendum of its members on whether to leave the pact if four proposals were not approved by the government.

However, IU members do not accept Ms Diaz’s reasons of instabilities and accredit the split to the socialists’ political interests. They insist that the dissolution of the current coalition was a decision taken only by the PSOE party.

Secretary General Pedro Sanchez said he understood the decision taken by Ms Diaz and that he would put all his efforts into the regional elections campaign.

The early elections are expected to be the first real evidence of the push of newly created party Podemos and a measure of the strength of the two major parties, PSOE and PP, which have dominated the political scene over the past decades.