The PSOE municipal group in the Huelva City Council lost one of its eleven councilors last March. It was by no means the first departure of a councilor. In fact, since the 2023 municipal elections, the Socialist Party had already lost eight others, but Luis Albillo’s departure was more painful and symbolic. Painful because, unlike what happened with those who left before him, he did not give up his council seat but joined the group of non-affiliated members, so not only did the Huelva PSOE lose a name, but above all, a seat in the capital’s corporation. And symbolic because Albillo was not just any councilor. With the last socialist mayor of Huelva, Gabriel Cruz, he was part of the government team as delegate of Infrastructure and Mobility.
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Albillo’s resignation, despite being the ninth, has shaken the foundations of the local socialist group like none of the previous ones because, according to what has emerged, behind it are the internal disagreements regarding who will be the next candidate for Mayor, the recently former regional parliamentarian Enrique Gaviño.
In reality, the departures of councilors from the socialist group in the Huelva capital began almost the day after the elections three years ago. The loss of government to the PP and its move to the opposition meant that four of the PSOE councilors, those who occupied positions 7 to 9 on the electoral list plus number 11, did not even take possession of their seats and staged a real walkout.
Only five months later, there was another resignation and another in February 2024, but the candidate who was to take office after this last departure also resigned, as did the number two on the list in May of the same year. In total, including Albillo, eight desertions.
Although the Huelva PSOE has tried to minimize the impact of the departures of its councilors from the Huelva City Council, the truth is that the hemorrhage of councilors is not exclusive to the capital, although most resignations are concentrated here.
In just under three years, Huelva socialism has suffered a real hemorrhage throughout the province, with nearly 70 councilors who have slammed the door. There are municipalities where the electoral list has even been exhausted and they have had to resort to substitutes to fill the gaps, as is the case in the town of Trigueros.
The list of municipalities where the PSOE has experienced resignations is long, at least 16, and includes important city councils (besides the capital), such as Ayamonte (five councilors have left); Cartaya (another five); Aljaraque (four have left) or Almonte (one departure so far).
Those from the party led by María Eugenia Limón maintain that desertions and forced replacements are a “normal and usual” process in all political parties, but in the case of the Huelva PSOE it is a symptom of the ailment that has been eating it away for years, the loss of institutional power of what was the most powerful political organization since the beginnings of democracy last century. A crisis that has its most visible face in the electoral results, as election after election, the socialists have been losing support and power.
But returning to Huelva, the massive resignations of councilors suffered by the PSOE there are only a symptom of the crisis in which the once hegemonic party is immersed. A crisis that has its most visible face in the electoral results, as election after election, the socialists have been losing support and power.
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The 2015 regional elections were, so to speak, the last of the good times for the Huelva PSOE. It was still all-powerful and in that province the socialist list achieved 40.96% of the votes, that is, six seats, compared to 26.45% for the PP, with half the deputies. It was one of the best results for the PSOE in all of Andalusia on that occasion.
In the 2018 regional elections, the decline began, although the Huelva PSOE still outperformed the PP. It obtained 31.6% of the votes and four seats. And in 2022 came the collapse of socialism, widely surpassed by a Popular Party riding the enthusiastic wave of Juanma Moreno after his first term as president. The PP secured the support of 42.72% of voters, that is six seats, and the PSOE only 27.39% and four seats. The Populars doubled their deputies and won in 56 of the 80 municipalities.
If the fall in the regional elections has been hard for the Huelva PSOE, the one they experienced in the 2023 municipal elections has been even harder. For the first time in the country’s democratic history, the Popular Party achieved the majority in the Provincial Council plenary, taking from the PSOE an institution that had not known any other government and a fundamental instrument in its territorial articulation strategy.
Huelva’s was, along with the provincial councils of Seville and Jaén, one of the main institutions that the PSOE had been able to retain in Andalusia, once the PP took the Junta and the majority of important city councils. After the fall of Huelva, the party now led by María Jesús Montero only retains the provincial councils of Seville and Jaén.
Behind the crisis of the Huelva PSOE, socialist sources say, is also the false closure of the internal schism experienced during Juan Espadas’ tenure. With Montero’s arrival and her insistence on pushing towards consensus and integration directions, a pact was formed in Huelva between the Susanists and the current secretary general, María Eugenia Limón, which did not convince many.
In fact, sources from that party point out, “today there are many people who have disconnected, the party is deactivated,” starting with who was the Susanist reference in this province, Ezequiel Ruiz. At the helm remain, they add, “the same people,” without effective renewal. And this has also translated into “disenchantment” and a loss of members estimated at around 30%.
Among Huelva socialists, there is also the impression that, after the debacle of last May 17, the final blow will come, definitively, in next year’s municipal elections, which Montero has already ordered to start preparing. The hope, they say, is that after being practically sunk, it will start, this time, to recover lost ground.
