Podemos has transferred the tension with its allies from the IU and the commons and with the leader of the space, Vice President Yolanda Díaz, to the interior of the coalition government, this time because of the negotiations for the renewal of the General Council of the Judicial Podemos. A battle that came to the threat of rupture and that has remained in dire water after refusing the PP to negotiate the renewal of the judicial bodies -again-. In the last 72 hours and for the first time since January 2020, voices were heard within the Government warning of a break in the coalition.
The paradox is that this rupture would not be between PSOE and United We Can but between Podemos and their fellow travelers. That is to say, between Vice President Díaz and the ministers Alberto Garzón and Joan Subirats, on the one hand, and the Podemos ministers, Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, on the other. And the paradox is that the battle has not been fought in confederal spaces but, above all, through the media and social networks.
The reason this time for the struggle, which was above all tactical, was that Podemos imposed the current Government delegate for gender-based violence, Judge Victoria Rosell –victim of a conspiracy by Judge Salvador Alba, who has just entered for it in prison–, as a member of the General Council of the Judiciary. Podemos threatened to vote against the agreement if she was not in the final proposal and the partners of the space received calls urging them not to support an agreement that did not include that name. We can wield that neither the rest of the space nor the PSOE can accept that it be vetoed by the PP.
The leaking of Rosell’s name, as a victim of a veto by the Popular Party, and the announcement of Podemos’ position in this regard, blew up the strategy agreed upon by the confederal space and led by Yolanda Díaz. In the meeting in which this strategy was closed, in which all the ministers were present -except Belarra, who was on maternity leave at the time- and representatives of all the families of the confederal group, it was decided that the person responsible for the negotiation with the minister of presidency, Félix Bolaños, would be the IU deputy and former Secretary of State, Enrique Santiago, whom Pablo Iglesias chose for that task when he was still Vice President of the Government. The objective was “to be in the agreement, not at the table”, that is to say that Santiago would not participate in the meetings with the PP, but would agree with Bolaños on the names that the government would defend in that negotiation, which in principle gave United We Can the possibility of contributing two names to the final agreement. Another decision that was made then was not to make any names public until there was agreement, in order to avoid possible vetoes. For this reason, the leak practically destroyed any possibility that Rosell – who was always on the short list managed by Santiago and whose defense already prevented the pact a year ago – from being on the Council. Before the leak, Podemos had repeatedly addressed Santiago asking to participate in his meetings with Bolaños. The former Secretary of State did not refuse, but asked the confederal space to decide. However, in none of the meetings with the rest of the space, the purple raised it.
Although Podemos set foot on the wall, the rest of the partners of the space, with Díaz at the helm, were willing to defend the name of the judge – despite the fact that Judges and Judges for Democracy, an organization to which Rosell belonged, pressed to avoid a revolving door appointment – ??but not at the cost of blowing up the deal. Diaz and the rest were determined to press on. The objective was to prevent the end of the legislature without the renewal of the CGPJ and the Constitutional, all the time the right wants to take the entire legislative agenda of the executive to the high court.
In the end, the surrender of the PP has prevented the eventual rupture. But the pressures, the threats and even the screams are not erased. The powder magazines have been stocked for a total war in the political space destined to begin the drawing of strategies for the municipal and regional ones. The question now is with what next fight will the fuse be lit.
