“In addition to the human toll, we can list Curro as a victim of these tragedies,” he said, referring to the colorful cartoon bird that served as the mascot of the 1992 Seville World’s Fair and which many Andalusians associate with the prosperity of the Socialist era.

“The deadly accidents are in a lot of ways representative of a social-democratic project that gradually ran out of steam, and that successive governments have failed to look after what had been achieved not only with infrastructure, but public goods and overall quality of life,” he added.

The generational gap

Socialist candidate Toscano is not blind to the reasons the Socialists have lost ground. 

After decades in power, he acknowledged, the party had faced growing pressure from the right, corruption scandals and a failure to adapt its message to changing living standards. “We had shortcomings in our management in recent years,” he said, while arguing the Socialists had nonetheless remained electorally competitive in parts of the region.

Cazorla argued the party’s difficulties go beyond its record in government: It also faces a generational problem. Younger electors who grew up in an already-transformed Andalusia feel little identification with the Socialists or with a regional leadership associated with the discredited administrations of the past. 

“A young left-wing voter is paying attention to a different message — one the old guard is incapable of projecting,” he said, adding Adelante Andalucía, a regionalist party that advocates in favor of greater self-government and left-wing policies, is more likely to seduce local electors.

Toscano, however, remained hopeful that Andalusian voters would turn out for the Socialists in an election he frames as a choice between Sánchez’s progressive agenda and the global conservative wave. 

“We’ve seen public services deteriorate under Giorgia Meloni in Italy, and Javier Milei wielding his ‘chainsaw’ to dismantle Argentina’s welfare state,” he said. “In this election, Spaniards must choose whether to remain a country that continues to make social progress or follow the path of regression we are seeing elsewhere.”