Spain: the head of Podemos resigns from the government to run for the regional in Madrid

The current vice-president of the Spanish government Pablo Iglesias, who is also the leader of the radical left party Unidas Podemos, has announced his resignation.

Pablo Blázquez POOL / AFP / Archivos

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2 min

A political coup in Spain.

The current vice-president of the Spanish government Pablo Iglesias, who is also the leader of the radical left party Unidas Podemos, has announced his resignation.

The reason: to stand for the next regional elections in Madrid, scheduled for May 4.

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With our correspondent in Madrid,

François Musseau

Pablo Iglesias has a knack for creating surprises.

This extraordinary politician, the first to have sealed a left coalition government with the Socialists, thus renounces the considerable power he enjoyed within the national executive led by Pedro Sanchez.

But, he said himself, it's a long-matured decision that allows him to do three things at the same time.

On the one hand, to put an end to this great permanent and contradictory gap of the one who had to both support the decisions of the Socialists and also challenge them as leader of Unidas Podemos.

Then, give way to the current Minister of Labor Yolanda Diaz, a heavyweight of Unidas Podemos whom Iglesias would like her to be his successor for the general elections in 2022.

Finally, this resignation of the leader of the radical left will allow him to stand in the regional legislative elections in Madrid, at the beginning of May, with a great challenge: to face and beat Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the rising figure of the populist right and without complexes .

More than a place of vice-president in the government, Pablo Iglesias, by his own admission, needs this kind of ideological fight.

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