The possibility of a coalition between Podemos and Sumar for the Basque elections was closed, unofficially, on March 3, although since then both parties had refused to consider the negotiations broken, leaving a minimum loophole for the agreement options. This Wednesday, however, Sumar settled the issue, through its leader in Euskadi, Lander Martínez. “That option has been closed. Podemos has chosen to take another path,” he noted.
Martínez’s statements come after in recent days a group of militants and sympathizers from both groups demanded, through a collection of signatures, “a new attempt” to close a coalition that guarantees the presence of this space in the Basque Parliament. Likewise, this position is known a few hours after Miren Gorrotxategi, candidate for lehendakari of Elkarrekin Podemos, pointed out that, given the poor results of this political space in Galicia, it was necessary to try again for an agreement, even offering her resignation as head. list.
Lander Martínez, however, has responded negatively to the offer of whoever would succeed him at the head of Podemos in Euskadi. According to him, Sumar Mugimendua and Podemos Euskadi have broken off negotiations on a possible coalition due to “lack of trust”, so they will run separately in the next Basque elections.
The leader of Sumar has also held Podemos responsible for this situation, indicating that he already chose “another path” when he broke with Sumar in Congress and by deciding not to run alongside Sumar in the last Galician elections, where neither of the two formations got representation.
For her part, Podemos’s candidate for lehendakari, Miren Gorrotxategi, considered it “a shame that Sumar has concluded” the possibility of reaching a coalition agreement. As she has pointed out, Podemos has done “everything possible and impossible to make this unity agreement a fact”, and she recalled that yesterday she publicly reiterated that she was willing to “take a step aside if was necessary”.
“Unfortunately there is a part of this space that does not listen to the left-wing majority of the citizens of Euskadi,” said the Podemos candidate, who has assured that the purple formation will continue to “represent this space” as it has done until now. .
Although neither of the two political formations had so far formally announced the breakdown of the negotiations, both Sumar, Ezker Anitza-IU and Equo-Berdeak, which are running as a coalition, and Podemos Euskadi have separately started their pre-election campaign events, with Alba García, in the case of the former, and Miren Gorrotxategi, on the part of the purple ones, as candidates for lehendakari.
