The Podemos bases have largely rejected the option of running in coalition with Sumar in the regional elections in Galicia on February 18. In this way, the militancy of the purple party supports the thesis of Pablo Iglesias, who had been openly against reissuing a pact with Yolanda Díaz.
62.3% of the 2,513 registered who have participated in the internal consultation have said no to a new confluence with a political space led by the second vice president of the Government, compared to 36.2% (911 people) who have been in favor . 1.3% voted blank.
The founder of Podemos had been very critical of the conditions offered by Sumar in Galicia, which included the “imposition” of his name on the ballot and of “the candidate hand-picked by Díaz from Madrid, Marta Lois.” He had also rejected that the people from the formation in which he no longer holds any organic position had been “relegated to positions that were impossible to be elected.”
“The new tragala, in this case in Galicia, has been met with a forceful response from the purple militancy, not only because of the clarity of the result, but also because of the high participation,” underlines this Saturday an article published by Diario Red, the media created by Iglesias after his departure from politics.
The regional leaderships of Sumar and Podemos had reached a preliminary agreement on Wednesday to run as a coalition in the Galician elections – along with Esquerra Unida (Alianza Verde and Equo) – just three weeks after breaking up in Congress, where the five deputies led by Ione Belarra unilaterally distanced themselves from the general alliance to go to the Mixed Group.
After the announcement, the purple leadership had avoided supporting this budding autonomous pact, leaving the decision to accept or reject it up to the party’s bases. Iglesias, however, openly asked the militancy to express their opposition to an electoral tandem with Díaz’s space and has even demanded the vote for the BNG on February 18.
In the last Galician elections, in 2020, Podemos ran in coalition with other forces without giving up its brand, but did not obtain any seats. The fragmentation of the options located on the left spectrum now hinders the possibility of a change in the Government of the Xunta after the departure of Alberto Núñez Feijóo after four absolute majorities of the PP.
In addition, after rejecting the coalition, the purple bases have voted in favor of presenting their own candidacy to the Xunta elections with the election of the Transform Galicia list headed by the former mayor of La Coruña Isabel Faraldo against the Rexurdir option. . The winner of the primaries has obtained 1,047 votes in favor compared to 871 for her competitor.
The regional leadership of Podemos has confirmed its intention to run alone in the next regional elections. “We are a modest political force, but there is a sector of society that shares our ideas and they cannot be politically orphaned,” party sources have stated, Europa Press reports. .
This Saturday, through an editorial published in Diario Red, it is emphasized that the proposal made by Díaz’s team in Galicia to participate in a coalition when there were very few days left to be able to make a decision “committed all the errors that had debased the previous processes and even some more”. Among the latter, he points out that the space of the also Minister of Labor would “only” give them 46,000 euros per year of party financing to which they are entitled after the elections in the case of having any representation.
“In view of this new attempt at cornering and humiliation by Sumar, the leadership of Podemos Galicia, with Borja San Ramón at the head, received the offer with skepticism, without ruling out that it was a simple media maneuver to force the purple ones to break up and be left as the culprits, and decided with good judgment to submit the agreement to the vote of those registered. This morning the results were known and they could not be clearer,” adds Iglesias’ digital media outlet.
According to Diario Red, it is the “last event in an already long chain that, beyond the different positions and the philias and phobias of each one, can be objectively described as a trajectory of increasing political failure”: “After the mediocre result in Andalusia after the first test of the new way of forging agreements introduced in the Sumar space, and after the reduction of the political space with respect to that occupied by Unidas Podemos that occurred in the general elections under the leadership of Yolanda Díaz, nothing suggests that on February 18, Sumar can obtain a result that will allow the PP to be evicted from the presidency of the Xunta.”
For its part, Alianza Verde is also the vice president of the Government and has announced that it will be alongside Podemos in next year’s Galician elections. That of the party led by former deputy Juantxo López de Uralde is the second formal break after that of the purple ones of the 15 formations that participated as a coalition in the 23-J elections.
The minority environmental group had been marginalized on Sumar’s lists and has also seen this week how the general direction of Animal Rights has ended up in the hands of José Ramón Becerra, a member of Equo.