The scene occurred almost a year ago, during the party that La Vanguardia organizes on the eve of Sant Jordi with the book sector. Pablo Iglesias made his way through the crowd of huddles that were chatting animatedly until he reached the group formed around Yolanda Díaz. Both merged into a long and trusting hug, one of those that Podemos like so much. As he separated from her, she, without ceasing to smile with her slanted eyes and her index finger at the ready, blurted out: “You’ve been very curmudgeon lately.” They were the first words they had exchanged in many months. Relations between the former Vice President of the Government and his successor remain tense, although both held a talk a few weeks ago to try to redirect a situation that threatens to sink the left.
What is happening in United We Can? Will they be able to reach an agreement for a candidacy united with the generals headed by Díaz? Or have they bled to death along the way? The differences between the future candidate and the purple ones are not programmatic, but that does not mean that they are minor. It could be said that they are organic discrepancies, of strategy and style. Let’s go by parts:
It is the most obvious. In Podemos the feeling spreads that they are trying to corner them on the lists, that Díaz intends to make them “in the offices” with the rest of the confluences and dilute what was the main driving movement of the formation. Podemos first pressured to agree on the candidacies of the generals before 28-M, the date of the municipal elections. After verifying that this would be impossible, they demanded a commitment to run as a coalition (which maintains the organic independence of each party) and now calls for open primaries. Díaz already advanced this week in Rne that there would be primaries in the new organization, Sumar, and reminded Iglesias that he “handpicked” her as a dolphin. It is possible that Díaz insists on his willingness to hold primaries to encourage Podemos to attend the event on April 2 in Madrid, where he will officially present his candidacy. A plant of Podemos would be a bad omen, although the rest of the confluences have been quick to confirm their attendance after the pull of the speech of the vice president in the motion of censure of Ramón Tamames.
The organic fight can be channeled before 28-M, but it cannot be completely resolved until after. Among other things because in the municipal and regional elections this spring Podemos and some of its possible partners in Sumar, such as Más País or Compromís, will be electoral competitors, as in the Valencian Community or Madrid. Díaz is closer to those forces than to Podemos, but he will try not to step on calluses in the campaign.
Perhaps the key is in the phrase that Iglesias exclaimed at the Podemos assembly in October 2014: “Heaven is not taken by consensus, it is taken by storm.” The former leader of the purples is aware that the moment is different. In 2015 he achieved 69 deputies (of which 27 belonged to his territorial allies) and more than 20% of the votes. It seemed possible to unseat the PSOE with a strategy of “impeachment” that presented the Socialists as part of the “caste”, of an outdated system. For Iglesias, you can only beat the PSOE by marking distances. The podemites believe that Pedro Sánchez uses the ticket image with Yolanda Díaz because he is interested in him, but always keeping his partners at bay. Does Díaz want to be simply the socialists’ crutch? No, but her methods are others.
For the Sumar leader, it is about seducing the PSOE voter by addressing society as a whole. Her example was her speech on the motion of no confidence: she had praise for her colleagues from Podemos and for the socialists. Even for Nadia Calviño!, with whom she has had strong ideological clashes within the Government. Following this strategy, Díaz pursues something similar to what Más Madrid achieved with Mónica García, who ousted the PSOE in that community. She is not within her reach in the December general elections, but she can sow for later, for when Sánchez decides to retire and the Socialists have to find a new leader.
The form is almost as important as the substance in reaching voters. Díaz has repeated this week a phrase that Iglesias pronounced in 2019: “It is not easy to add the different, it is not easy to bring together people who come from different political traditions, but if we aspire to change our country, if we agree on 90% of the program, we have to be up to the challenge and our obligation is to walk together”. The same words, spoken in a different tone. The vice president avoids the image of a sulking, grumpy and sad left, which only feels comfortable in her corner. In her environment they believe that Podemos is cloistering itself, far from that purple poster for its first elections that read “when was the last time you voted with enthusiasm?” A language of contestation, but also of hope. Although again the moment is different.
The hostilities will continue because when a party is expanding it is easier to reconcile differences than when it is in the withdrawal phase. In the general elections, not only the first place between the PSOE and the PP is at stake, but also the third, between Unidas Podemos and Vox. The third will decant the pacts. It is a small, very well-paid jump: the ultra-right went from 10 to 15% of the votes and the electoral law thus took it from 24 to 52 seats. But the left tends to demobilize more if its leaders quarrel. Iglesias likes to quote Mario Benedetti: “To win the future you have to fight for the present.” It’s just that some fights have no future.
PS.: Will Iglesias and Díaz see each other this year for Sant Jordi?
