Podemos has convened its state citizen council for this Saturday, which has not met since April 1, when the management summoned the territories to inform them of the boycott of the Sumar act that was held at the Magariños sports center the following day. Saturday’s meeting is important because the state leadership has not offered its reflections on the electoral result of 28-M or on the negotiation of the coalition agreement with which the leadership that signed it agrees and in disagree at the same time.
Since noon last Friday, when the Secretary General, Ione Belarra, announced that she would sign with Sumar despite the “veto” against the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, rumors spread that the minister, rather than having been excluded, had been relegated and the best offer available to her was a number one for Bizkaia. After a few days, sources of the negotiation, from both sides, confirm that this option existed. In any case, in the last hours of negotiations, when the names of the 15 starting positions that Podemos achieved were closed -and in particular, of the eight that have almost guaranteed the seat-, the party did not press for the inclusion of Irene Montero, but that of María Teresa Pérez, director of the Youth Institute, dependent on the Ministry of Social Rights.
What Sumar a Podemos had conveyed during the negotiation was that the campaign approach would not be one of confrontation with the ultra-right and, in this sense, they would not persevere in the campaign of polarization around the application of the law only if it is Yes, in light of the results that 28-M had given Podemos. The words of former Vice President Pablo Iglesias resonate when announcing his retirement, after saving the presence of United We Can in the Madrid Assembly, in May 2021 and Isabel Díaz Ayuso achieving her first great triumph: “I mobilize the darkest affections, most contrary to the democracy and its material bases. He understood that his presence activated the vote of the right as much or more than the progressive. Subsequent opinion polls confirmed his intuition.
Perhaps the setback of the Supreme Court to Equality, on Thursday –that proverbial sense of opportunity of the Spanish togados–, confirming the sentence reductions in application of the law of Comprehensive Guarantee of Sexual Freedom, discouraged the Podemos negotiators in the hours finals. The fact is that at the decisive moment the name of Montero was not on the table, but that of Pérez. Subtle or explicit attempts at vetoing, however, were reciprocal, and Podemos tried to prevent Movimiento Sumar from placing party members who had fallen out of favor with the leadership in their starting positions.
The agreement that the numbers one and two of Podemos, Ione Belarra and Lilith Verstrynge, will defend before the citizen council, despite everything, is a success for the purple, bloodless after the regional and municipal elections: more than 20% of the positions of exit on the lists and 23% of the available resources, by far the formation that achieved the most financing and institutional presence of the 15 coalition signatories. Which, after the result of 28-M and the need to restore the microcredits of supporters for the campaign, is not a minor matter.
However, the ambiguous discourse of Podemos, in favor of and against its own firm and making the rescue of Montero a very central cause, is operating as a demobilizing factor for the vote and overshadowing the achievement of unity. Some attribute it to the inertia of the party, others believe that they are playing with two decks – the feigned negotiation with ERC and the registration of a new party do not help – and some remember the words of a member of the leadership of Podemos, a year ago, when the hostility with Vice President Yolanda Díaz was already obvious: “We will make everything burn, and we will build on the ashes.”
