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A couple of years ago, Juan Manuel del Olmo wrote a book, Politics by Other Media (Catarata), in which, paraphrasing the now Minister of Universities, Manuel Castells, defended that power is achieved by generating meanings in the speeches that arrive to citizens through the media. «The current policy is fundamentally a media policy», stressed the secretary of Communication of Podemos.

This maxim seems to have guided the ambitions of this 37-year-old soriano, who has been gaining positions in Podemos at a speed of vertigo until he became the almighty director of Strategy and Communication of the Vice Presidency of Pablo Iglesias. It was clear what he pursued when, in 2017, he took to the streets the plot of corruption with the faces of Mariano Rajoy , Rodrigo Rato , Jordi Pujol , Juan Luis Cebrián and Luis Bárcenas , one of his first performances as a dircom of the purple formation .

«They were able through a bus to summarize the universe We can [...] give me an antagonism and I will become better and stronger. We face them ”, the then political consultant Iván Redondo wrote about the campaign.

Del Olmo is Iván Redondo de Podemos. He has worked side by side with the cabinet chief of Pedro Sánchez negotiating the coalition government and they get along pretty well. They are the plumbers of the Executive, the hands that move the threads in the shadow. The two have taken power using the same strategies of a sociology manual and constantly quoting Lakoff .

Designer of the Republican T-shirt of La Roja

«If we want to know who is in charge, we must follow the money trail». The phrase is told by a character from The Wire , one of Del Olmo's favorite television series, and it comes to mind because Podemos awarded services to the electoral consultant Neurona, investigated for corruption in Latin America, by decision of Del Olmo. The money was put by the treasurer, Daniel de Frutos , but the idea started from Del Olmo. He is the man who has the keys to the operation.

This ICT consultant who grew up reading the stories of Astérix and Obélix was one of the confounders of the Malaysian clothing brand 198, who in 2010 designed a Republican shirt of the Spanish team. «For decades football had been awkwardly despised by the classical left, in its refusal to identify with patriotism. This commercial campaign is an example of how to do politics by connecting principles and values ​​with emotion and passions, ”he said.

When King Juan Carlos abdicated in 2014, shirt sales skyrocketed. They say that, thanks to him, Pablo Iglesias stopped dressing in Alcampo.

At that time Del Olmo had begun a military in Podemos by Irene Montero, with whom he had agreed in the communist youth. That year he was already elected as a member of the Citizen Council of formation and appointed by Iglesias as head of Internal Activities of the General Secretariat, where he put the leader to tour Spain and meet with citizens to gather ideas for the electoral program.

In the elections of December 2015, he won a seat as a deputy for Valladolid, which he lost in the elections of April 28, 2019. He did not appear again on 10-N. Depending on your party, to focus on your work with a view to upcoming campaigns. But in writing the discomfort existing at IU was reflected, where it was requested that it not be repeated on the lists because it was an imposed person without any connection with Valladolid.

It was his worst year, as the arrival, months before, of the adviser Pablo Gentili as chief of cabinet of Iglesias weakened him in his position: the emotional strategy by insisting on the antagonisms he had marked with the bus was marrying badly with the moderate profile and rational that Gentili tried to impose.

In recent months he seemed more distanced from Iglesias, but he still retained all the support of Montero. With the departure of Gentili to Argentina, he is back on a roll. He is about to be a father with the deputy of Podemos in the Assembly of Madrid Isabel Serra and has a privileged place as the right hand of the vice president.

From there he will continue to work to create what he calls a "geography of emotion", the terrain on which we can best move. The means justify the end.

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  • Manuel Castells
  • Ivan Round
  • Pablo Iglesias
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  • Irene Montero
  • Mariano Rajoy

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