Podemos’ Secretary of Economy, Nacho Álvarez, is leaving politics after his party’s veto for him to occupy a ministry in the coalition government. The coalition forces in Sumar offered Podemos a ministerial portfolio early on Friday and proposed the name of Nacho Álvarez, Ione Belarra’s number two in the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030, in exchange for the purples committing to coordinate their communicative action with the rest of the allies, to stop criticizing and insulting the rest of the partners and not to present a candidacy in the European elections next June against Sumar. At the meeting, Podemos rejected the agreement and again demanded that Irene Montero remain at the head of the Ministry of Equality.
“I am not going to accept being a minister if the organization of which I am a part does not share or approve it,” Álvarez says in his letter, after explaining that this Friday he received the proposal from Yolanda Díaz to be part of the council of ministers. “It is evident that the current leadership of Podemos has lost the trust it placed in me when it appointed me as a member of the Executive,” which is why it is taking “a step aside.”
After vetoing Álvarez’s appointment, Belarra regretted his resignation on social networks and blamed Sumar for the resignation: “We can not deserve these stratagems that put our people at the feet of horses.”
The eight points of the agreement offered to Podemos, which the organizations integrated in Sumar subscribe to, include supporting the initiatives that emanate from the coalition government in the votes in Congress, accepting the conflict resolution mechanisms that are established within the coalition Government , abide by the decisions of the plurinational parliamentary group of Sumar in which they are integrated, including voting discipline, cease public attacks and insults against members of Sumar, including Yolanda Díaz, “establishing a cordial and cooperative relationship with all space”, and maintain the alliance in the next electoral cycle, renouncing to present its own candidacy in the European elections.
In exchange, Podemos would participate in the coalition government by having a ministry, for which Sumar proposed the Secretary of State for Social Rights, Nacho Álvarez, as the member of the Podemos executive who maintains the best relations with the group of members of the Sumar coalition, but also for having led, during these four years, all the negotiations of Unidas Podemos with the PSOE, from the budget projects to the Housing law, through the different measures of the social shield or the government’s anti-inflation plans .
At the Sumar and Podemos meeting, the Morados outright rejected the possibility of Álvarez assuming a ministerial portfolio and claimed the autonomy of the party to choose ministers. Podemos defended Irene Montero becoming Minister of Equality again, a possibility that was ruled out by Pedro Sánchez months ago, displeased with the ministry’s management of the crisis of the only yes is yes law. Sumar’s partners hoped that Podemos would offer alternative names, but the purple party did not even defend the continuity in the government of its general secretary, Ione Belarra, Minister of Social Rights.
The negotiations with the PSOE, in any case, remained fluidly open, more concerned with each of the two parties squaring their own internal pool than with mutual difficulties in the final link between the two organizations. Sumar aspires to five ministerial portfolios and, apart from the Labor portfolio for Yolanda Díaz, the Culture portfolio was also considered resolved, for the current spokesperson for Sumar and member of the commons, Ernest Urtasun. The other aspirations of the left-wing coalition were the Ministry of Health, which would be headed by the leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, and a portfolio for the IU MEP Sira Rego, an even more significant appointment, since the current coordinator of Izquierda Unida and acting Minister of Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, announced this Friday his decision to also leave the leadership of the coalition. The fifth name in contention is that of the former secretary of international politics of Podemos Pablo Bustinduy, who had left active politics in the spring of 2019 after the rupture between Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón was consolidated.
