The agreement between Podemos and Sumar to jointly compete in the elections to the Basque Parliament this spring does not arrive and time is against this eventual pact. Practically a month after the date that had been given to reach a coalition agreement was issued, the Podemos leadership has supported the candidacy of Miren Gorrotxategi to head the list of the purple formation and also of a possible coalition, while Sumar has reacted by insisting that “she is not a consensus candidate,” while acknowledging “obvious discrepancies.” The final decision on a joint candidacy, in which IU and Equo would also participate, cannot be delayed much longer and all the sources consulted indicate that it will arrive in the coming days.
Although Basque politics is experiencing weeks of a certain impasse, the pre-campaign will definitively be launched this Saturday with the official presentation of Imanol Pradales as the PNV candidate. From there, at the expense of the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, announcing the date of the elections, the struggle between the political formations will precipitate and time will run out for Podemos and Sumar.
The management of the purple formation, with its coordinator in Euskadi, Pilar Garrido, at the head, participated this Thursday in the presentation of Miren Gorrotxategi’s candidacy for the formation’s primaries, a process to which no other candidate is presented. .
At an event in Durango, Gorrotxategi highlighted the distance that exists today with respect to Sumar and threw some darts. The current spokesperson for the party in the Basque Parliament has said that if “other parties” are not “responsible enough to recognize that here there is already a shared space between different parties and a political reality that represents this plurinational left” and “that force is capable of changing things, as it has demonstrated by its work”, it is going to be “difficult to understand each other.
“If anyone wants to join forces, they are welcome, but nothing is going to be possible with anyone who wants to divide the left in Euskadi,” he warned, while emphasizing that the historical moment demands responsibility” because “the possibility and the hope that we have on the table right now is superior to the problems of the context in which we find ourselves.
Gorrotxategi, therefore, has the resounding support of the current Podemos leadership to be the party’s candidate and also of the eventual joint candidacy that would arise in the event of an agreement with Sumar, Equo and IU. However, Sumar has insisted that she does not view this option favorably, a position that, on the eve of the elections, seems difficult to overcome.
Sumar Mugimendua’s spokesperson, Andeka Larrea, believes that the candidate for lehendakari of an eventual joint candidacy should be Alba García, until recently a worker on the Podemos payroll and presented on January 9 as the bet of Yolanda Díaz’s party.
Larrea has indicated that the discrepancy is not so much the person or a “personalistic discrepancy” regarding the candidate, but a difference in the political analysis that is made. Along these lines, she specified that Sumar clearly sees that Basque society is currently demanding “a change in Basque politics”, a renewal in leadership and, “of course, a generational renewal.”
Larrea, however, has indicated that the differences go beyond the candidate and also have to do with programmatic and strategic issues.
In any case, he has recognized that the scenario of going separately would not be positive for these formations. In fact, if they compete in two different groups, it is likely that both would be left out of the Basque Parliament or that, at most, one of them would enter with a single representative from Álava. If they participate jointly, the polls give them around 3-4 representatives (out of a total of 75), half of their current representation. The complicated horizon that looms in the event of competing separately is the greatest incentive for unity within this political space, although it is not at all clear that it will be enough.
