The die had been cast for a long time and this Saturday the rift between Podemos Euskadi and Sumar that will lead them to compete separately in the Basque elections next season has been practically consummated. This afternoon, Sumar presented its agreement with Ezker Anitza-IU and Equo Berdeak to jointly compete in the elections, with Alba García as a candidate. Podemos, meanwhile, presented the candidacy of Miren Gorrotxategi this Friday and has begun campaigning on its own.
Neither Podemos nor Sumar have closed the negotiations to participate jointly, but the possibilities of agreement at this point are minimal. The positions of both groups in the Basque Country are extremely far apart and, as is known, in Spain as a whole there is a chasm between them.
The purple formation, in fact, had already warned this Monday night that the options for agreement were limited. “People are tired of hearing us talk about things that are not interesting; Podemos Euskadi starts campaigning with its candidates, and whatever has to come, will come,” said Pilar Garrido, the general coordinator of Podemos in Euskadi.
Podemos, in any case, had to close, before starting the pre-campaign, the process for proclaiming Miren Gorrotxategi as a candidate. An event this Friday afternoon served to close this process, in which there has only been one plan, and the purple formation is already immersed in the pre-campaign of elections for which, however, there is still no date.
Practically simultaneously with that act of the purple formation, Sumar announced that it had reached a preliminary agreement with Ezker Anitza-IU and Equo-Berdeak to jointly participate in the elections to the Basque Parliament this spring.
This Saturday morning they made it public and, although they have stressed that “the agreement will not be closed today”, inviting “more organizations” to join, the truth is that, in practice, this presentation is the prelude to the breakup. total of the negotiations. In fact, Gorrotxategi has pointed out that the agreement between Sumar, Ezker Anitza-IU and Equo-Berdeak is “a step contrary to unity”, while he has indicated that “state logic is taking precedence”.
Alba García, candidate for lehendakari of the coalition, Jon Hernández, from Ezker Anitza-IU, and Carmen Muñoz, from Berdeak-Equo, have been in charge of signing the document in which they commit to attending the next Basque regional elections under the Sumar brand.
The candidate thanked the political organizations present at the event for the agreement reached and warned that the road “is not going to be easy.” “A path that, above all, is worthwhile, because it undoubtedly depends on it if we in Euskadi make progressive and useful policies for the majority, just as we are doing in the coalition government,” she stressed.
From Equo-Berdeak, Carmen Muñoz has stressed that the agreement will not be closed today: “I speak on behalf of the three coalitions when I affirm that this agreement will not be closed today. This coalition begins here and now, and we invite more organizations that want to work for Euskadi from a vision of a profoundly transformative country to join this candidacy”.
In any case, all the sources consulted emphasize that the possibilities of agreement are almost zero. Podemos has stressed that her candidate must be Miren Gorrotxategi, while Sumar has been insisting that she is not the ideal candidate because “a generational change” is needed. It seems unlikely that in a matter of days or weeks the Sumar leaders will be seen asking for the vote for Gorrotxategi. At the same time, both formations have spoken of strategic and programmatic differences.
The positions in the Basque Country, where the current leaders of Podemos Euskadi have had to negotiate with their predecessors, whom they defeated in primaries, are very far apart. And the understanding between both formations is even more complicated south of the Ebro, where there is a real abyss.
Last fall, when the talks began, there was some optimism, given that competing separately could leave them out of the Basque Parliament. However, that has been the only incentive for the agreement, everything else has gone against it, especially in Madrid. At the beginning of December, the Podemos deputies left the Sumar group and joined the Mixed Group. At the end of the same month, the Podemos militancy aborted the possibility of an agreement to participate jointly in Galicia.
Podemos Euskadi had indicated that the agreement with Sumar had to be reached before the end of the year and, subsequently, sources from the purple party set this week as the deadline. The positions, however, are further apart than ever and the hypothetical agreement seen for sentencing.
At this moment, both formations are preparing the story that can explain why there has been no agreement.
