Sumar has definitely turned the page on a complex week, with the parliamentary defeat of the unemployment benefit included, holding a big event in Madrid yesterday in which its leader, Yolanda Díaz, announced the convening of the constituent assembly for the 23 March.
This foundational conclave, in which Sumar will go from being an electoral coalition to becoming a “broader legal tool”, will satisfy one of the recurring claims of the different forces that make up the confederal space to “channel and develop the decision-making process ”, which, until now, was almost exclusive to Díaz.
In anticipation of this March 23, and as an intermediate step, Sumar also presented yesterday the promoter group, focused on consolidating the deployment of the brand, with a hundred members, among whom the former Minister of Universities stands out Joan Subirats; the spokeswoman for Més Madrid, Rita Maestre; the philosopher César Rendueles, and the ex-leader of Podem Jesús Santos.
Díaz took advantage of the event to vindicate the role of Sumar within the Spanish Government as a promoter of labor and social reforms in the face of the “backlash that the right-wing parties intended to apply” of PP and Vox. Although, already in an electoral key and with the Galician elections very close, he did not hesitate to confront the PSOE, which he placed in the old policy, and with Podemos, which he placed in “the policy of no” for “prioritizing interests outside of people’s lives”, an allusion to the vote against his subsidy decree.
Accompanied by the other four ministers of Sumar, Ernest Urtasun (Culture), Mónica García (Health), Sira Rego (Youth and Childhood) and Pablo Bustinduy (Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030), the second vice president also had words of thanks to the ambassador of South Africa in Spain, Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, for her country’s complaint against Israel before the UN Court: “Our Government must follow in your footsteps and Sumar will leave the skin for it to be like this”, he affirmed.
Several sources from Sumar agreed yesterday to underline the need to “take root” and deploy territorial groups to consolidate the brand in a high-voltage political context that does not cease, since, after the Galician elections, the Basques will come, still without date, and the European ones, on which Podemos has all five senses, with the former Minister of Equality Irene Montero as head of the list.
In this deployment, however, parties that make up the current confluence will be missing, as is the case with Compromís, Chunta Aragonesista and Més per Mallorca, which are not under the direction of Sumar. Or Aliança Verda and Drago Canaries, two formations that have chosen to mark certain distances after not sharing some of the decisions adopted by Sumar since 23-J.
