It shouldn’t happen, they all have numbers on the table that indicate it’s electoral suicide. And yet, as in the fable of the scorpion and the frog, it is beginning to be seen that what is left of Podemos – what is left after municipal and regional governments – will face alone all the lefts that it once brought together and led Or maybe it’s just that it looks like it; a good bluff can be a winning move that cradles the rest. But Podemos, it is known, has never been bluffing.
The purple party wants a prenuptial agreement with Yolanda Díaz before the municipal elections and wants the vice-president to campaign in favor of Unides Podemos and against the rest of Sumar’s eventual allies in places as delicate as Madrid and Valencia. The party executive demanded from Díaz, through the mouth of Javier Sánchez Serna, an agreement prior to the municipal “coalition between Sumar and Podem”. If he doesn’t sign on the dotted line, they won’t witness his impending layup. For months the management of Podemos did not refer to Sumar as the “political party” it is not and did not allude to this kind of “bilateralism”. It is clear that there will be no such prior agreement, because Díaz’s electoral platform is not a party and cannot sign in these terms on lists and money – which is the only thing that is being discussed here – but Podemos is not coming to the table either parties that IU proposed so that all the formations that aspire to participate in Sumar ally themselves.
The final negotiations of the reform of the gag law showed that the confederal parliamentary group of Unides Podemos is broken and there is no longer any effort to conceal it. Just over a year ago, the same thing happened with the labor reform: while IU and communes were trying to get Esquerra into the pact, or at least tear an abstention from it, the management of Podemos sent messages of encouragement to the Catalan republicans. That the Madrid management of Podemos likes the republicans of Oriol Junqueras more than the commons of Ada Colau is no secret, but a year ago it was not only concealed, but someone even got angry if the press hinted such a thing This week, on the other hand, Ione Belarra, minister and general secretary of Podemos, publicly blamed the PSOE – which voted together with Unides Podemos and the PNB – for ERC and EH Bildu condemning the processing of the law. Very clear. Enrique Santiago, leader of the negotiations for Unides Podemos – and one of the most active and discreet mediators to avoid the break-up – reprimanded in public the ex-leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, for applauding the all or nothing of republicans and abertzales. Red lights flashing on the bridge.
Meanwhile, all of Podemos’ strategies are deployed in terms of conflict. There was no blood in the river with the CGPJ because Alberto Núñez Feijóo got off the moving train, but Podemos had already decided to use Victoria Rosell – one of the five names in the Unides Podemos team – to send an invitation to the rest of space The same thing happened with the 2023 budgets: while Unides Podemos negotiators toasted with champagne for accounts that exceeded their most optimistic expectations, Podemos played guitar smashers and accused the PSOE of having hidden military spending from them: It was the first time that Podemos lied to the press in the congressional groups. But it wouldn’t be the last.
For the reform of the only yes is yes law, the confederal group has placed itself under the leadership of Igualtudad. And since the strategy is to attack, there are serious doubts that Podemos will turn the proposals of Irene Montero’s team into an amendment to save the law from Pilar Llop’s regressive reform. Between mitigating the damage to the law or making the collision with the PSOE visible, Podemos can choose the one. Because the leadership has been fighting for months in the strategy of the attack, as if the portrait of Carl Schmitt had replaced that of Antonio Gramsci in the offices: the only policy is antagonism, the collision, the question politics is based on hierarchy, on combat and on the correct distinction between friends and enemies.
And there things are even more delicate, because the sentimental rifts of the Cainite phase 2016-2019 still ooze in the direction of the party. The embrace of the Canarian Alberto Rodríguez – at the head of his Project Drago – with Íñigo Errejón caused something more than teeth to be gnashed on the top floor of Francisco Villaespesa 18, and we are no longer talking about the act on mental health that went share Errejón and Díaz on Friday.
Pooling forums are blinding. Podemos protested a year ago about Díaz’s lack of activity in confederal coordination, but now he drags his feet to go to meetings or sends other people without the capacity to decide. In space, some consider the battle lost. They believe that Podemos has already decided that everything will burn. Podemos asks for respect for his career and sacrifice, from the patriotism of the acronym. The purples believe that all of them, starting with Sumer, are their offshoots. Dissidents, traitors; what Cayo Lara always said about Podemos, that they were a split from IU and that they owed respect to their history, their sacrifice. Podemos was born with circles and makes them.
