Gaspar Llamazares returns to politics. He will be the candidate for mayor of Oviedo from a list promoted by Izquierda Unida called Call for Asturias, and which also brings together other progressive formations and independent people.
The former general coordinator of the IU makes this leap into municipal politics at the age of 65 after having made a career in the Congress of Deputies and in the General Board of the Principality of Asturias, from where he suddenly left in January 2019 due to strong discrepancies with the federal direction of IU. To the point that he resigned from the organization led by Alberto Garzón to embark on his own path with the Actúa party, with which he ran for the general elections in April of that same year.
“I once again participate from the local level in the recomposition of a serious left, of dialogue and collaboration that turns the page on polarization and the tension of the populist imbalance,” Llamazares assured in statements to EL MUNDO.
In case there were doubts about what it means, in La Voz de Asturias he has indicated that his will is to “contribute to the Sumar project [the platform of Yolanda Díaz] from the local level.”
The candidate for mayor of Oviedo has stressed that he had “never” left politics, because these almost four years he has continued to do so from “a more intellectual or reflective activity.”
Regarding his municipal candidacy, called Call for Asturias, for now it brings together IU, Más País and Izquierda Asturianista, as well as people with the independent sign, such as Llamazares.
The last time that Llamazares stood in an election in Asturias was in 2015, under the acronym of IU, when he achieved 12% of the vote and five seats in the regional elections. It was the best result of the organization, which resisted in this region where the irruption of Podemos was better.
Currently, IU does not have any councilor in the Oviedo City Council, after they lost their usual representation in the 2019 municipal elections. In 2015 they had three councilors, with 9%, but four years later they collapsed to 3.7%.
Before knowing the candidacy of Llamazares, the polls had already been pointing to a return of IU to the Oviedo City Council. Perspectives that, a priori, are more than reinforced with the signing of such a popular figure. The Sigma Dos poll for EL MUNDO, prepared in December, gave IU a voting intention of almost 6% and its translation would be one or two seats.
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