The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, will head the PSOE list in the province of Cádiz. Born in Madrid, he takes over from his colleague in the Council of Ministers, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who has been the number one for the Andalusian province in the last three elections. For his part, the Minister of the Interior, of Basque origin, is now integrating into the socialist list for Madrid for the general elections of the 29N.
This game of chairs, which usually occurs outside the regional structures of the parties, does not understand acronyms. It is not new either. Once the Cortes are dissolved and the political formations are busy, "cuneros" deputies or senators flourish.
We are talking about those parliamentarians who run for election in a constituency with which they have no notable personal, political, or territorial connection. That is to say, candidates who run for a province where they were not born, do not reside, or have not developed their political career.
Order and command
The term comes from "cunerismo," a common practice during the Bourbon Restoration, when party leaders placed candidates in electoral districts with which they had little relationship, taking advantage of the control of local political structures to ensure their election. It was a practice that was closely related to clientelism and the system of party rotation between conservatives and liberals.
Currently, this phenomenon has been reduced to anecdote, and does not hide behind it a game of seats among the elites. However, when it occurs, it still causes tensions within the parties themselves.
Discontent arises especially within provincial and regional organizations, which sometimes see how national leaderships impose candidates foreign to the territory, displacing leaders who have been working day-to-day for years.
Normally, the arrival of a "parachutist" candidate in the province usually responds to electoral strategies of the top brass, who seek to guarantee a seat for certain leaders (for example, ministers) or give visibility to national figures.
Province sought
One of the first "cuneros" of democracy was José Manuel García-Margallo, who would end up being Minister of Foreign Affairs under Mariano Rajoy, and who found in Melilla in 1977 the constituency from which to leap to Congress.
According to García-Margallo himself as he recounted to DEMÓCRATA, when he conveyed to Pío Cabanillas his intention to become a deputy at the beginning of the Transition, he asked him where he was born and studied. "In Madrid and San Sebastián," Margallo replied. "Well, you have it tough," was Cabanillas' frank response. Madrid was a very contested list and reserved for the top players, and the Basque province was a difficult place for center-right parties in the midst of the flourishing nationalism.
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However, the young politician did not give up and decided to hire a communication and marketing agency to identify a constituency where he could present his candidacy. After studying the electoral map, he found a family link with Melilla: his great-grandfather had died there in 1893 at the head of his troops. The autonomous city, which elected a single deputy, ended up granting its seat to UCD.
Margallo would eventually be elected deputy in another six legislatures and his name appeared on the ballot in Valencia and later in Alicante, already in the ranks of the Popular Party.
Adds up and continues
During the almost fifty years of democracy, there have been cases in all parties and throughout the territory. But in 2019, a derivative of "cunerismo" was experienced, normally associated with the purely electoral stage, when the leader of the PP Javier Maroto did not secure a seat for Álava and ended up being an autonomous senator for Castilla y León.
Born in Vitoria and mayor of the Alava capital between 2011 and 2015, he did not obtain a seat in the general elections of April. The popular leadership, of which he was a part, then found an alternative to keep him in the front line: to appoint him as an autonomous senator for Castilla y León, a community with which he had no type of link until that date.
To access the position, Maroto registered in Sotosalbos, a small municipality in Segovia with just over a hundred inhabitants. His arrival caused a political controversy and the PSOE even questioned the legality of the registration, while the popular leader defended that he met all the requirements. Finally, the Cortes of Castilla y León appointed him senator on July 23, 2019, with favorable votes from PP and Ciudadanos.