All bridges seem to have been blown in the last 48 hours between Podemos and Sumar. In an important week for the stability of the legislature, with Pedro Sánchez’s investiture cleared and full negotiations to define the second government coalition since the return of democracy, the internal war is once again tension in the space on the left of the socialists and created many doubts about the future fit of Ione Belarra’s party in that group. If nothing works and Irene Montero is not Minister of Equality, the organization founded in 2014 by Pablo Iglesias will finally be abandoned by the Council of Ministers and threatened not to continue all the decisions it makes, which has already pushed the parliamentary which is limit arithmetic. complicated. We can also consider running separately in the European elections in June, competing for the same voters as Sumar.
The crisis worsened on Friday, with the extreme offer of Yolanda Díaz to the party of the acting head of Social Rights so that they have a ministry led by the current Secretary of State of that department, Nacho Álvarez, a member of the Executive of We . yes, but who do they consider closer to the vice president? In turn, Sumar also asked them to sign an agreement of up to eight points, including the commitment to “stop public attacks and insults” by coalition members, including Díaz himself, or join all elections in the next election cycle. The day ended with the announcement of the departure of Álvarez from politics, who despite always being a well-known consensus figure outside the sphere of the left, left his party positions when he understood that he “lost confidence .” the leadership and resigned as minister because he could not think of accepting the position “outside the organization” of which he was a part.
In his public response on Friday, Belarra made it clear that his proposal to the Government is to keep Irene Montero at the head of Equality. And he insisted on the same thing this Saturday, in a march in support of the Palestinian people in Madrid where, moreover, he ignored Díaz and spoke directly to the president. “When the investiture has been voted, only one person will make the decision on the names of the ministers and that person is Pedro Sánchez. “He is well aware of Podemos’ proposal to continue with feminist reforms,” he said. But the chance that Sumar will keep that portfolio in the next Government is almost zero. PSOE wants to regain Equality. The reductions in sentences and the release of the yes-only-means-yes law caused one of the strongest crises in the Executive of the last legislature, and the agenda deployed by the department opened a gap between the feminist movement and the socialists. , who have the protagonists a hard opposition to the ministry of the main regulations like the trans law and now they want to control it again. Podemos reiterated that its commitment to Montero is a “collective” decision and that in any case they do not consider any option other than that. In Sumar, for their part, they confirmed that they are ready to negotiate with another profile and even the points of the agreement proposal, but without a counteroffer.
The differences, in any case, are not new. Podemos reached a complex agreement with Díaz’s party in June after two years of public disagreements, with visible moments of tension, such as the shipment of weapons for the war in Ukraine, the configure the lists of Andalusia (led by Izquierda Unida) or the Autumn University party in 2022, where Iglesias asked for “respect” from the vice president. Since then, the misunderstanding has increased. The regional and municipal elections were a debacle for Podemos and after the general election, in which it won five deputies in a group of 31, the party, immersed in an ERE, charged against Díaz for in an attempt to “make them invisible” and demanded “political autonomy.” Within the group.
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In this context, the question is what will happen from now on? Before the Government was named, no one wanted to anticipate the scenarios. The political document approved two weeks ago by the party bases endorses, however, this distance from the platform of the vice president and indicates that electoral alliances with other political forces will only happen if there is primaries and no veto candidates. The decision about what to do in the European elections, for example, has not yet been made, according to members of the Podemos leadership who were consulted. Nor in the regional elections of Euskadi or Galicia, not yet called but scheduled for 2024. Iglesias suggested this week on Rac1 that they could separate from the European Parliament – something that some representatives of Sumar do not see – and that in this legislature They will “identify” themselves from the coalition, strengthening the alliances of ERC, EH Bildu and BNG. “Podemos deputies will not leave the parliamentary group,” however, a purple leader ordered, who explained that they can decide autonomously what to do with each vote. If Podemos is not in the Government, it will not feel responsible for what the Council of Ministers decides, he stressed.
“For some time it is clear that we are moving without brakes towards a confrontation within the space of the left of the PSOE,” analyzed Juan Carlos Monedero, co-founder of Podemos, now from any position who is linked to the party and who is critical of both parties.. “Sumar has done very badly and Yolanda Díaz is wrong to think that he can kill Podemos, listening to the sectors of Errejonism that he trusts. Podemos has stuck to names and has not explained itself well,” he added in reference to Montero. “But they also did not leave him many alternatives. Humiliations, like what happened in the bombing of cities, brought those who were bombed closer,” he said. “The effort made by some of us aimed at maximizing the space on the left. Now we enter another where everyone dedicates themselves to their garden. And everything has become less attractive,” he concluded without hiding some concern about what lies ahead in a legislature that begins with many questions and the role of Podemos defined.
Nacho Álvarez, a reference beyond Podemos
The figure of Nacho Álvarez, professor of economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid, is recognized beyond his party and the left. The head of the economy of Podemos until Friday, a smart professional, capable negotiator, and who always tried to mediate between the parties (also in Vistalegre II between Iglesias and Errejón) received praise from inside and outside the organization when he left politics. .
Among many others, the Minister of Social Security, José Luis Escrivá, praised his role in “promoting the parliamentary majority” behind the pension reform, while the former Ciudadanos deputy Toni Roldán called him a “serious economist and non-sectarian “. “What a good minister we have lost in the next Government, we all have lost. Thank you for the great work you have done in the Ministry of Social Rights and for putting your intelligence and your solidarity in public service,” Victoria Rosell, delegate of the Government. , dedicated to her against gender violence.
