The former Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, resumed her public agenda this Monday once nominated, through primaries, to be head of the Podemos list in the next European elections. And he did so in an interview on TVE in which he admitted “errors” in his training, regretted that “no one” informed him of his resignation as head of the Equality portfolio, and declared that “lawfare exists in Spain.” .
On this last issue precisely, and once the closure of the Neurona case that investigated Podemos and several of its former leaders for alleged irregular financing was known, Montero has declared that it is clear that in Spain “there is lawfare and that it has been exercised so much against Podemos as well as against the independence movement” (…) “This damage that has been done to Podemos so that it lost electoral strength is already irreparable.”
Montero’s words have not stopped there: “It is one of the big problems that our democracy has,” said the number two of the purple formation, pointing out that the objective of lawfare “is not only to break our lives in the courts, it is about everything that there are front pages, day after day, and hours and hours of gatherings in the media defaming, creating falsehoods about public representatives and creating the idea that we are all equal so that in the end there is such a distance between those public representatives and citizens, that electoral force is lost,” he continued.
Montero has also recalled “the fabrication of evidence” that was orchestrated against his Government delegate against Gender Violence, Vicky Rossell. “He had to suffer the creation of false evidence by none other than a corrupt judge, a former PP minister, [José Manuel] Soria, and a Canarian businessman. Luckily, they managed to demonstrate that there was fabrication of false evidence and that The corrupt judge is in jail today, but if it had not been proven, they would surely have broken the life, not only the personal but also the professional, of this judge, who is one of the greatest experts on gender violence in our country. country”.
“That is why it is necessary,” Montero continued, “that there are forces like Podemos, that do not put themselves in profile and that speak of the judicial right when the PSOE also does so, but that speak of judicial machismo when the PSOE does not want to give that battle (…) If we don’t say things as they are, they will never be able to change,” he stated.
The former Minister of Equality has also considered relations with Sumar definitively broken after joining the mixed group: “We will negotiate and speak with whoever needs to be negotiated and spoken to, but Podemos has its own path,” she said, defending the “full autonomy” of the training regarding the negotiation of the 2024 budgets.
Montero has avoided answering whether Podemos, by breaking with Sumar, has breached the pact with the coalition, point 10.1 of which includes the express commitment to remain in the parliamentary group throughout the legislature. And he has limited himself to saying that the decision they made “was very difficult, but necessary.” “We were looking for something as simple as intervening in Parliament, the Podemos deputies could not do politics,” he put forward by way of argument.
In addition to attending the European elections in which Montero will be the head of the list – he has to submit to primaries – he has confirmed that Podemos will also run in the Galician and Basque elections, although without clarifying whether they will do so with Sumar or not.
The break with Yolanda Díaz has paralyzed the negotiations to put together a coalition in Galicia while in Euskadi there is a favorable climate for them to be able to go together.
Regarding her departure from the Government, Montero has assured that “no one” ever told her that she was no longer a minister and, precisely, continuing in the ministry was one of the things that the purples fought until the end without success.