Yesterday’s meeting of the state citizens’ council of Podemos, almost three months after the previous one, did not provide reflection or conclusions on the results of the 28-M – elections in which Podemos lost almost half of its voters – but served for the party to announce its assumption of Sumar’s hegemony in the political space and the decision of the lilacs to depart from the front line of the electoral campaign, the helm of which will be in the hands of the leadership team from Sumar
The general secretary, Ione Belarra, explained it in her initial speech before the highest body of the lilacs between congresses, assuming, of course, the results of May as a defeat: “To win you have to know how to lose”, it was the elaborate analysis of the situation, after recalling the harassment to which the party has been subjected, as the main reason to explain the loss of electoral support. Belarra insisted, however, on repeating that Irene Montero had been personally vetoed by Yolanda Díaz – a statement that no participant in the talks between Podemos and Sumar ratifies – and on making fun of the Minister of Equality, who has become a symbol of resilient identity from Podemos “Irene is a point of reference for this party and a point of reference for feminism, and Yolanda Díaz’s veto of Irene is, above all, a mistake, because it involves accepting the discipline of the right and means telling women to put on their bodies and that they are fighting for feminist advances that in the end the attacks achieve their goal”, assured the leader of Podemos. And in this sense, Belarra tied the future of the party to that of the minister: “This party will never let go of the hand of Irene Montero, who is an essential part of the future of Podemos”.
Exceptionally, Irene Montero herself intervened openly for the citizens’ council and the press, she elaborated on the account of the vice president’s personal “veto” against her, and emphasized that she is not the victim of the veto, but that she ’embodies feminism, which is the true victim of its absence from the electoral lists that will be presented on July 23. And in this speech of identification between herself and the movement for equality as victims of the “veto”, she assured that, despite this, the feminist movement is “unstoppable”. In these terms, and despite Belarra’s announcement that Podemos will assume a subordinate role in the electoral campaign, Montero assured that “we will not remain silent or stand still in the face of the reactionary offensive that is being deployed from the deepest powers and that represent in PP and Vox institutional politics. We will speak and fight because it is what we know how to do best”, proclaimed the Minister of Equality.
The representatives of the territories that make up the state citizen council, in the debate following the interventions of the numbers one and two of the party, according to sources from the lilac formation, supported the general secretary in her decision to integrate -is in the Sumar coalition, and to do so, as Belarra explained, with a secondary position and assuming the “veto” to Irene Montero. Without breaking the coalition pact with the other fourteen political forces that are integrated into the Sumar platform.
