Podemos’s new roadmap, voted and approved just 10 days ago, is already having internal consequences for the federations of the purple party, at least in Catalonia. In Podem Catalunya, no less than 13 of the 25 members of the management have presented their resignation this Tuesday upon learning that the current executive led by Conchi Abellán has initiated an expulsion file and the precautionary suspension of militancy for having once opted for the agreement with Sumar, when a joint candidacy for the 23-J elections was still being debated.
The initiation of this sanctioning file affects precisely the same thirteen members of the leadership who on June 8 promoted a manifesto in which they encouraged the coalition with Sumar. The statement indicated that “the best scenario” for the general elections on July 23 was unity between Podemos and Sumar and rejected the use of the unity that exists in Catalonia as a “measure of pressure” in the negotiations. In this case, they were referring to Catalunya en Comú Podem, the brand formed by two organizations: Podemos and Catalunya en Comú. All this, after the shadow leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, pointed out the commons as an obstacle to the agreement.
The consequences of that manifesto come now, after Podemos has drawn up a new roadmap in which it marks great distances from Sumar, and even threatens to end up breaking up from the parliamentary group in Congress. This new roadmap, which expresses dissatisfaction with the coalition agreement with Yolanda Díaz’s platform and emphasizes the need to reinforce the autonomy of Podemos, also translates into the prohibition of double militancy, something that without This doubt affects a good part of the space on the left of the PSOE, especially in Catalonia, where many leaders maintain this double militancy.
The prohibition of double militancy would translate into the impossibility of being active in Podem and in the commons, something that would not only affect a good part of the leadership of the purple formation in Catalonia but also many other leaders, councilors, deputies… Among them, also the current coordinator of Catalunya en Comú and president of the commons parliamentary group, Jéssica Albiach, who is active in Podemos.
From the commons they are aware of the situation and that the regional coordinator of Podem Catalunya, Conchi Abellán, has assumed “the mandate to end this double militancy”, in her own words, something that until now, the Catalan coalition assures that “It hasn’t translated into anything.”
The veto on double militancy would not only have consequences in Catalonia. since Podemos’s will with this measure is to stop more Podemos leaders and activists from landing in Sumar and helping Yolanda Díaz grow her project at the expense of the purple party. In the coming months, Sumar will face its birth as a new political party and plans to allow double militancy to admit members of the confluences that were part of the agreement for the general elections. Not in vain, Díaz intends to run in the next Basque and Catalan elections, where she would do so with the commons, but a massive landing of Podemos members in Sumar would strip Belarra’s party before the next elections with the polls.
In the resignation statement, the 13 members of the Podem Catalunya management criticize that the expulsion file “seeks to censor the debate on the unity of the space of change” and “is the breaking of the management’s commitment to this unity and a pointing out to the militants that we have supported it from the beginning.” Sources from the resigning group warn that it is, in short, “the rupture of space” because “many militants will leave” and this is a situation that not only occurs in Catalonia, but also occurs in other territories, such as in Madrid.
In the resignation statement, the 13 leaders of Podem Catalunya are proud of the construction of the political space of En Comú Podem, whose commitment was evidenced in the process of building the En Comú Podem candidacies in the last municipal elections. In fact, the space on the left of the PSC in Catalonia managed to present itself without fissures in the last 28-M elections, with joint candidacies, something that did not always happen in previous elections, where the commons and Podem came to compete in dozens of town councils. .
Now, the deconstruction of space as a consequence of the pact with Sumar seems evident, and has consequences in the territories. The resignations of Podem denounce precisely that the leadership of their party “seeks to censor the debate on the unity of the space of change” as a consequence of the new roadmap recently approved, about which the general secretary, Ione Belarra, clearly stated reference to Yolanda Díaz, that “we had to stop dead the operation that had the objective of replacing Podemos with a left subservient to the regime.”
On the other hand, the current Podem leadership has reacted to the resignation through a statement in which it justifies the opening of the expulsion file for the June manifesto issued “without the consensus or approval of the party leadership.” In addition, they claim Podemos’s new roadmap, “a political document endorsed by almost 31,000 registered voters and where the autonomy of our political space is reinforced,” they point out.
The 13 members who have presented their resignation are Lucas Ferro, former deputy of En Comú Podem in the Parliament; Yolanda López, deputy to the Parliament of Catalonia; Marcos Galante Navarro, Laura Alzamora Merino, Raquel Vernedas, Sarai Martínez, Loren Rider, Xavier Navarro, Ramón Espejo, Marta Gómez, David Pequeno, Rosa Trenado and Gerard Bargalló.
