Politics is not the jungle that some want to see in it.
Nor the arid desert that you must always cross alone.
In politics I have found some of the best people I know, and in it I have forged some of the friendships and relationships that accompany me in life.
One of them has been, I have no doubt, Javier Imbroda.
I have met few people as constant, as competitive and as fighter as Javier.
None that, furthermore, was endowed with a capacity for dialogue and consensus as ingrained as he was.
Throughout the last three years, which we have shared in the Andalusian Government, Javier has been a great adviser, but he has still been a better colleague and person.
For this reason, when I now express my feelings for the loss of him, I do so more as a friend than as president of the Andalusian Government.
It has been three exciting years at his side.
Exciting because Javier breathed passion into what he did, and spread spirit and strength to those around him.
Basketball players or advisers in a coalition government, he didn't care.
We were his team, and he was always there for those of us who needed his talent and his spirit of motivation.
"Get away from sadness, because with sadness you don't get anywhere", we have heard him say many times in this time, when some of the projects that we tried to carry out did not have the expected success or took longer than expected to be materialized.
Talking with him was always the safest way to regain confidence in ourselves.
A lunch with him was always the best recipe to give us back the necessary strength to face the next challenge.
When his cancer was detected, Javier acted as he had always done in his personal and professional life: with courage.
If he had never written off a game before the buzzer sounded, he wasn't going to write it off now with the game of his life.
Many were surprised by his attitude in those first moments, but not those who knew his fighting spirit well: no giving up his job as a counselor, no giving up in the face of the challenges posed by Education and Sport in Andalusia, no postponing the Projects.
Not one step back.
Attack game against the toughest rival.
Javier is responsible for the reforms that, in a short time, will allow Andalusia to have one of the most competitive educational systems in Spain.
He has been the main promoter of our commitment to greater freedom of choice for parents, for the culture of effort and the improvement of educational quality at all levels, which is already reflected in a significant reduction in the ratio.
The world we live in needs the Humanities, and Andalusian Education, thanks to him, will continue betting on them.
In these years, its Ministry has given a great boost to Vocational Training and has revolutionized the labor market with its firm commitment to Dual Vocational Training, which is opening employment horizons to many young people.
Betting on educational excellence but leaving no one behind, with a significant effort in Special Education, with more teachers and units.
Javier was especially proud of the role of the entire educational community during the worst times of the pandemic, which faced the challenge of attending when some did nothing but sow uncertainty.
And also of the management of it in the sports field, tripling the budget for the Olympic Andalusia Plan or relaunching the Cartuja Stadium in Seville to host events such as the European Championship, national team matches and Copa del Rey finals.
Javier has planted a future.
The change in the educational model on which he has worked so hard is underway and is going to represent a qualitative leap of which we are already beginning to see the first fruits, such as the drop in dropout and school failure rates.
His example shows us that all this can be achieved without giving up competitiveness and without setting aside ambition.
On many occasions, when listening to him in the government councils or in the meetings in which he shared with me his projects for the Ministry, I imagined him in his role as basketball coach and selector.
I imagined him describing tactics and giving strength to people like Pau Gasol, Felipe Reyes or Juan Carlos Navarro.
Giving instructions and listening to his players.
Javier was a complete coach: he gave orders but he also knew how to listen.
He demanded the players of him, but he also defended them above all else.
As he befits a true leader, he dealt with criticism personally to relieve his team members of tension.
For him the attacks, for the others the successes.
This was also the case with his colleagues in the Andalusian Government.
Javier, the counselor Javier Imbroda, my friend Javier, has already left a deep mark on all of us.
We will always remember his way of speaking to us, his closeness, his personal and professional generosity.
We will always keep in mind your dedication to public service.
He has taught us not to give up, to fight to the end, to keep fighting when everything is against us.
It has been a real honor working with him.
It has been an immense joy to have his friendship.
The loss of him leaves us with a huge personal void that can only be relieved by the memory of his example.
We will have to listen to him, as we always did, and move away from sadness.
It will be very difficult, but it is the best way to honor his memory.
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Javier Ibroda
Pau Gasol
Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla