Compromís and Sumar reached an agreement on Thursday to participate together in the European elections. A pact that was sealed despite the fact that Compromís did not make it easy with its maximum bet: either the ‘3’ on the list or it would activate a plan B even if this left it with no options to have a record in the European Parliament. A movement that would have dealt a very hard blow to Yolanda Díaz’s space, which is not going through her best demographic moment; Furthermore, they did not enter the Galician Parliament and will suffer to do so in the Basque Parliament. Just one fact, in the last general elections, Compromís-Sumar achieved 13% of all state votes.
Despite the agreement reached, it does not seem that the relationship between the two has the future assured by any means. These months of coexistence have made the critical voices in Compromís with a joint roadmap with Sumar grow and, since the agreement for 9-J became known, a multitude of comments contrary to it appeared on the networks.
With a Sumar that is not consolidated and repeats the vices of the Spanish left’s past, there are many Compromís leaders who consider that the relationship between the two must be rethought. “After the European elections, we will have to start marking distances,” a coalition official pointed out a few days ago. And in recent months a lot has happened.
Mónica Oltra was one of those who bet heavily on Yolanda Díaz from the beginning. Tired of the way of doing things of Pablo Iglesias, but also of Íñigo Errejón and other leaders (in men) of the so-called transformative left, she sought the sisterhood of leaders like Díaz herself, Ada Colau or Mónica García. She set up with her small party of Initiative-Compromís the meeting in Valencia of ‘Other Policies’, considered as the starting signal for Sumar (November 2021).
The following months – very complicated for Oltra, who would be forced to resign in June 2022 – the Compromís leader already saw how many men and women turned their backs on her. Yes, she then felt the sincere affection and affection of leaders such as the current Minister of Health and representative of Más Madrid, Mónica García.
A few days ago, on her first visit to Valencia after the judicial file of the Oltra case, it drew a lot of attention that the second vice president of the Government did not spare a few minutes from her agenda to attend to journalists and send a message of support to women. who mounted that first act of promoting Díaz’s project.
Be that as it may, the truth is that Sumar was already built with Oltra outside the political scene, but with Compromís as a firm ally. And the emergence of Díaz’s brand and the continuous fights with Podemos muddied the scene of the regional elections and the Valencian left lost the Botànic in May 2023 -less than two months after Magariños-.
Unides Podem, after a very tough and confrontational campaign against Compromís, was left out of Les Corts Valencianes with 88,152 of the votes; 3.62% that was far from the necessary 5% and that prevented the reissue of the left-wing Valencian government chaired by Ximo Puig.
Despite this, Compromís did not hesitate to seal a pact with Sumar for the general elections that Pedro Sánchez called the morning after the left’s regional debacle. The agreement was not bad in terms of distribution.
Compromís achieved 1 and 2 on the list for Valencia (who would ultimately become our current two deputies in Congress) and that its brand was the first on the ballots of the Valencian Community (yes, with the face of Yolanda Díaz printed). However, episodes such as putting a crib in Alicante – and the leader’s face – have already begun to squeak. All in all, the results of July 23 were decent for the new coalition (402,813 votes and 15.35%) but far from previous electoral experiments such as A la Valenciana (Vamos-Compromís-Esquerra Unida) which achieved 659,771 votes in 2016, o This is the moment (without the EU, but with Podemos) that moved in the same figures a year before.
Everything indicated that the foundations of a lasting relationship were being laid and the agreement already specified the commitment of both brands not to compete electorally. The Valencians thought, more than about the result of the European elections, about blocking the possible growth of Sumar and about keeping that voting space to the left of the PSPV that has hovered around, with oscillations, half a million supports.
After 23-J, Compromís doubled its only representative and aspired to increase its visibility. However, these first months of the legislature have shown that, packaged in the plurinational parliamentary group led by Sumar, this has not been the case.
Despite the efforts of deputies Àgueda Micó and Alberto Ibáñez, the Valencian agenda has been buried once again with the start of parliamentary activity. It was possible to place the issue of financing in the investiture pact of Sumar and PSOE, but since then nothing has been made regarding the change of model. There was also no success with civil law and the expansion of the port of Valencia in the Council of Ministers generated significant internal tensions within Compromís. Senior leaders of the party had publicly assured that this decision would not be approved in a Council of Ministers of PSOE and Sumar. A month later, the opposite happened.
With the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, Compromís refused to join the Government of Spain at a second or third level, as this would prevent it from opposing or questioning the executive. In fact, the decision not to accept Sumar’s offer to occupy the general direction of Imserso caused a new fire in Initiative-Compromís. However, this attempt to question and distance themselves from the Spanish government has not been seen since in the key votes, the two Valencian deputies have voted alongside their group mates. Furthermore, the great negotiating trump card that could be the General State Budgets will not occur after the decision of the Sánchez Executive not to present a project for this year given the haste of the elections in Catalonia.
In this context, the statements of an experienced Compromís leader such as the current senator and former president of Les Corts, Enric Morera, who ended the relationship between the Government and Compromís, were not at all random. The ombudsman of the Valencian coalition in Les Corts, Joan Baldoví, qualified this, but without downplaying the seriousness of the differences and pointing out that the debate on Compromís’ support for the Executive is always present. The problem they say is that “seeing what the alternative is, letting the government fall is not an option.”
What no longer seems so crazy is distancing yourself from Sumar. Even more so when this formation has ignored Compromís’ discomfort over the movements of Yolanda’s faithful to establish themselves in the Valencian Community.
