Yolanda Díaz’s initial quintet, those five guests who preceded her in the speeches, discovered, especially, two faces.
Because Carla Antonelli has a long career as a PSOE deputy and has recently gained popularity after breaking with that party due to the Trans Law.
Because Gioconda Belli is a famous Nicaraguan writer and a social reference, formerly for her collaboration with Sandinismo against the dictator Somoza and now against the Sandinista Ortega. She also has a recent milestone: she tore up her passport live, on television, as a gesture against the autocrat.
And because Helio Roque can boast of 133,000 followers on Tik Tok, a figure that many politicians would like. The kid made a mistake about him, and that has made him even better known and, as for so many influencers, the mistake reinforces his image.
But in Díaz’s quintet there were two anonymous ones. A choice with cause. His stories have the added value of reflecting what the vice president wants to project: 1. Battle against supermarkets and inflation. 2. Fight against bad bosses who use low wages (hotels) or impose slave conditions (agriculture). Maite Navarro and Teresa Fuentes come with a message, even as a future candidate.
In the heart of Benimaclet, a historic neighborhood of Valencia full of students and working families, there is a small store that has risen to fame for wanting to lead the way to hypermarkets. The “basic shopping basket”, with 28 products at 29 euros, that she launched in September by Ultramarinos Javi aroused the praise of Yolanda Díaz and explained her invitation to launch her candidacy for the Presidency of the Government.
Less than 24 hours after stating at the Sumar event that “Yolanda was right” in proposing to limit food prices, Navarro and her husband, Javier Torres, were already raising the grocery store early in the morning . Like the last 28 years. “The idea of ??the basic basket has been a huge success,” admits Navarro, while she says good morning to the neighbors who show up at the store. However, the fact that her initiative has allowed them to reach new clients – even from outside the neighborhood – does not mean that it has brought them great economic benefits. “You can’t make money with the basket when you put the products practically at cost price,” explains the shopkeeper.
The idea of ??offering a basic basket at a reasonable price came from her husband, who was actually inspired by Carrefour. “If they do it, we are going to see what we can do, since we have a lot of fresh produce and, selecting a few, we already have a basket. And thus we help the people of the neighborhood with inflation,” they said. Her basket holds milk, eggs, pasta, rice, cookies, sunflower oil, legumes, tomato, fruit, vegetables, and trays of turkey breast, Serrano ham, and cheese. The secret? Freeze the prices of those products, but not the rest that fill the shelves. “We are a business, not an NGO. We do not lose money because the rise in costs has been transferred to other products.”
Navarro is hesitant to lecture the big supermarkets, but she suggests that perhaps they could limit the price of certain products like her. “There is not a margin with everything, although in specific things she could not earn money.” The opportunity to launch her argument in favor of the small business came this Sunday, the day of rest for her owners. Díaz had already tempted her to a Sumar rally on a Saturday, but that day she is behind the counter.
“If Yolanda believes it and can do it, why aren’t we going to support her,” says this shopkeeper as she prepares the last box of vegetables. Of course, he does not see much of a solution to the inflation crisis: “We are weathering the storm thanks to a loyal clientele.”
Teresa Fuentes (Molina de Segura, 1976) has never appeared on a party list, “but I have always been in politics,” she admits. She, a laboratory technician who dreamed of being a nurse, was the voice of unionism for Yolanda Díaz. As secretary of the Federation of Services of the CCOO in the Region of Murcia, she values ??the work of the leader of Sumar in a sector that she knows well: the hospitality industry. “There are poor workers in the hospitality and commerce of Murcia”, she has repeated in recent months. The fight against fraud in hiring, breaks or overtime pay for waiters or kellys have been his priorities until, after a threatened strike this Easter, he managed to sign a collective agreement with the employers at the end of March.
His social commitment goes beyond trade unionism. Her humanitarian vocation satisfies her in her relationship with NGOs, especially with Amigos de Ritsona. Her friendship with Joaquín ‘the priest’, a priest from the Catholic Action Workers’ Brotherhood, led her in 2016 to a Syrian refugee camp 17 kilometers from Athens from which she has not been able to detach herself. “No one is illegal” (“No one is illegal”) has a tattoo under the neck of this woman who, together with a colleague, took a car and went to the Cartagena countryside in search of Moroccan day laborers who had suffered abuse by the foreman that gave them work. They offered them the support of the union and their legal assistance so that their complaint would end in a sentence of 42 years in prison for six continuous crimes of sexual abuse.
In October, Fuentes already signed a manifesto for the unity of the left calling for the confluence in Murcia of Podemos, Izquierda Unida, Equo and Más País. Neither in 2015 nor in 2019 was this agreement possible in a region where the PP has governed for 30 years and where the growth of Vox can be guessed. Last January he was one of the 13 voices of civil society who signed again “for some candidacies of progress and unity of the left.” Finally, the parties signed their ‘add’.
Fuentes already appeared to the left of Yolanda Díaz in the Sumar listening process in Murcia, which brought together thousands of people in the Auditorium of the University of Murcia. Will she be the face of Díaz in the region? “There are many ways to be in politics,” she recalls.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
