Podemos yesterday called a consultation in extremis to the bases to ratify the integration agreement in Sumar, although without including the agreement in the consultation. The measure is the reaction of the state leadership to the movement of the autonomous leaderships on Wednesday, which demanded the leadership to sign the integration in Sumar, after the disastrous role of the party in the elections of May 28.
The peculiar wording of the question in the bases – “You accept that the Podemos coordination council, continuing the criterion of unity that marked the state citizen council, negotiate with Sumar and, if necessary, agree an electoral alliance between Podemos and Sumar ?â€â€“ requires for the party executive a democratic endorsement from the militants, at the last minute, after a negotiation led exclusively by this executive – advice and coordination – without prior consultation with the grassroots or the citizens’ council. The timing of the call, after ten days of negotiation, suggests that the talks have already been exhausted and that Podemos wants the support of the militancy to “yes” to Sumar’s offer.
While the rest of the participants in the negotiation have kept silent about their terms, the managers of Podemos have been leaking to the media for a week that the final choice has nothing to do with their weight in the lists of the new platform, the its method of preparation or the money allocated to the lilacs, but with the aspiration of placing the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, in a place of departure from the candidacies of generals, an extreme that Sumar would not accept, after the Supreme issued a final arrow to the law of only yes is yes and ratified the sentence reductions that have been applied by the different courts. Be that as it may or not, the fact is that on Wednesday night the two sides exhausted the course of the negotiation.
The attacks by Podemos personalities such as Pablo Iglesias and eventual partners of Sumar – mainly in CompromÃs, after learning that the expert reports confirm that the former Valencian vice president Mónica Oltra did not intervene in the case that was being pursued against the ex-husband– and the attempt by Podemos to cow the eventual partners with a simulated negotiation with Esquerra – categorically denied by the Republicans – have not helped to undo the grievance and improve the position of the lilacs in the negotiation.
Just yesterday it transpired that Podemos had registered a new party with the Ministry of the Interior, Juntes SÃ que es Pot, a registration that according to the management of the formation is due to an “error” that they would proceed to resolve immediately. Nevertheless, the initiative was read by the rest of the parties gathered in Sumar as the umpteenth attempt by the lilacs to procure an alternative plan to integration into the platform of Vice President Yolanda DÃaz, of which almost the all the other parties in the political space. The registration was made in the morning – a few hours after the negotiations had stalled – from Podem’s headquarters, located on Francisco Villaespesa street in Madrid, at the request of Carlos Gil Cuevas, a member of its state citizen council. Podemos reacted immediately, disagreed with the initiative and asked the Ministry of the Interior to cancel the registration request, which was still active yesterday afternoon. However, the move triggered all the suspicions of the rest of the eventual allies, given that an alternative trademark registered before June 9 would allow Podemos to present itself on the sidelines of the signing of the agreement to integrate is in Sumer.
The most prominent leaders of Podemos spent the rest of the day communicating on social networks that they had cast a favorable vote on the question launched by the party leadership, to encourage the grassroots to do the same in a consultation that ends today at 10 hours and in which all registrants who had verified their identity before Wednesday can participate.
The plebiscite maneuver behind the team of the secretary general, Ione Belarra, and the secretary of organization, Lilith Verstrynge – who have led the negotiation with Sumar for the last nine days – rests on an ironic biblical archetype: the governor Roman Pontius Pilate, faced with the impossibility of saving the life of the Nazarene against the criteria of the Jewish Sanhedrin, and at the same time disagreeing with the execution, summoned the Palestinian “bases” to decide, in a plebiscite, whether Rome should give death to Jesus or to the recidivist Barabbas. Faced with the result, Pilate washed his hands in public, and disapproved of the crucifixion of the carpenter’s son. Podemos will announce today whether it will be Sumar or Juntes SÃ que es Pot.
