The Compromís and Sumar pact marks a not insignificant regional roadmap. Despite some internal criticism for having surrendered to “the Madrid left”, in Compromís they are clear that the agreement with Yolanda Díaz was the best option in the current political context.
The first argument that facilitated the agreement was the desire to maintain its own voice (it will be necessary to see with what force and with what visibility) in Madrid. These years of Joan Baldoví have shown that, despite having only one deputy, being in a media sounding board like Congress helps to strengthen the brand in the face of the closest electoral challenges (municipal and regional).
In Compromís they explain that in the case of having gone alone in a context of great polarization, high participation, constant calls for the useful vote and direct competition from Sumar that would not have given up running in the fourth and fifth constituencies that distribute the most deputies -Valencia ( 16) and Alicante 12-, would have suffered to maintain the seat in the Lower House.
In the 2019 regional elections, Compromís achieved 443,640 and in the general elections that same day it stood at 173,821. That is, he lost 60% of his votes. Now, the cushion is smaller and in the last regional elections, Compromís obtained 357,989 votes. If he loses 60%, he would remain at 143,000 votes close to the abyss.
However, this is not the only reason that explains the agreement. The intention of Compromís is to plug a hypothetical growth of Sumar in the Valencian Community. The 23-J campaign will be carried out to a large extent by Compromís with the help of the EU and the Podem bases. Not much collaboration is expected from the purple leaders who have been excluded from the starting positions. All this will make it easier for Sumar not to take root in the territory.
In the interview published on Sunday in La Vanguardia, the candidate for the Compromís-Sumar Congress, Àgueda Micó, spoke of the fact that there would be no electoral confrontation between Yolanda Díaz’s platform and the Valencianistas. And it is that the Valencianistas feared that, now that Podem and the EU are in low hours (outside Les Corts and the main Town Halls), a new competitor could emerge to the left of the PSPV. A space that oscillates between the 400,000 votes of the last convocation and the 785,000 votes of the general elections of 2015 (which have been their electoral ceiling of the political space to the left of the Socialists).
Compromís wants hegemony in that space and hence the agreement to plug Sumar and the calls to the bases of the EU and Podem to integrate in the future in a coalition that, as Micó herself recognized, must face a constituent congress to be something more than an electoral coalition.
All this, in a context of crisis in Podem. On Monday the resignation of the general coordinator of the purple ones in the Valencian Community, Pilar Lima, was known, after results that she herself described as “bad, without palliatives.” Lima asked for a reflection to reformulate the project.
Almost at the same time that the decision of the general coordinator – who regretted that Podem was not represented in the Compromís Sumar coalition – was made official, the lists of this brand were made official to the general ones. In addition to the candidacy of the former Minister of Transparency, Manuel Alcaraz, as the head of the list for the Senate for Alicante, the list included names such as the former deputy of Podem in Les Corts Llum Quiñonero (who accompanies Alcaraz on the list of the Upper House ) or the former trustee of the purple, Naiara Davó, who faced Lima in the primaries to be general coordinator of Podem and lost by few votes. Davó will go three to Congress for Alicante.
These signings demonstrate the desire of the new brand to integrate people from other sectors who have not been in the line of the Podem management that has just resigned. In the Sumar lists, the presence as number one in the Senate of the former US deputy -he became a síndic and candidate for the Generalitat in 2015, Ignacio Blanco- also stands out. And it is that Micó also viewed with good eyes the future integration of the US bases.
While all this is cooking in the coming years, Compromís has to face this start of the legislature. Yesterday, the first meeting of the parliamentary group was held in which it was made clear that Joan Baldoví will be the spokesperson in Les Corts. The deputies were not decided, although everything indicates that, following the criteria of territoriality, party and gender defended by Baldoví, those in charge would have to be Aitana Mas (Iniciativa and Alicante), Vicent (Més Compromís and Castelló) and Paula Espinosa (Els Verds and Valencia).
