• Interview Alejandra Jacinto: "Ayuso's brother is not Ayuso's brother, he is a person who did business with commissions and we do not know why"
  • Interview Rita Maestre: "To govern Madrid you have to have a complicit relationship with companies"

Question. The central part of his campaign is to sell Podemos as the key to Madrid. Why?

Answer. That we enter the City Council with force is the only condition for Almeida to leave and I think this is clear to progressive voters. We have seen that Rita Maestre has said that she does not close the door to Ciudadanos to form a government. If we want a progressive government with left-wing policies that returns sanity and coherence to Madrid by rescuing public services, the only alternative goes through Podemos-IU-Alianza Verde.

Q. What is the difference between Más Madrid and Podemos?

A. That we do not wrinkle before the powerful. That is the main key difference we have shown since we have been in the Government of Spain.

P. But they share things at the program level. Would you be willing to a post-electoral pact to give Rita Maestre the key to the mayor's office?

A. The first thing is that, as an athlete, on May 28 I go out to win. When the people of Madrid have decided, we will see and measure the forces of each one, but there will be a progressive government because that is what the people in the street are asking of us. I insist that our differences are on vital issues, such as the remunicipalization of social services, which are in the hands of the powerful. Our legs are not going to shake and I hope and wish that neither will they, but it can happen to them and we are the guarantee.

Q. Who exactly are "the powerful"?

A. The foreign vulture funds that have invaded our city and are driving our neighbors out of the neighborhoods. The right has allowed it. The right talks a lot about patriotism but when it comes to doing business, like urban balls, they leave the Aliexpress bracelet in the drawer. The powerful are also the big construction entrepreneurs like Florentino Pérez, who have in their hands the future of many public services that have been privatized and precarious. A clear example is the Home Care Service, composed of 98% women working in deplorable conditions and this should not be condoned.

Q. Why your campaign against Florentino Pérez?

A. He is the one who has practically everything in his possession. Who rules in Madrid, its true mayor, is Florentino Perez and the person whom we elect the citizens cannot be allowed to be his butler. He takes most of the contracts that have to do with social services and a macroparking lot will be built next to the Bernabeu while, for example, removing the scalextric from Puente de Vallecas is never a priority.

P. Since you mention the scalextric of Puente de Vallecas, what alternative do you propose?

A. Green areas and naturalize public space by improving circulation. It is a point of great contamination and has an important symbolic charge because it is an open wound of inequality and the only calextric that remains. If the scalextric of Puente de Vallecas was in the Salamanca district they would have already removed it.

Q. And what do we do with the part of the M-30 that passes through there?

A. It would be necessary to see the urban plans and study with the technicians what the alternatives are but I think it is a priority to remove that bridge because it cannot be that cars are passing less than 10 meters from some homes. I want to make it clear that removing the bridge should not be a window for vulture funds to enter to crush the area, as has happened in Méndez Álvaro.

P. As a result of the Vinicius case, do you think Spain is a racist country?

A. Spain is a very classist country because if Vinicius is insulted we put our hands to our heads but when they call my colleague Serigne Mbayé mantero, the right buys the discourse. Reactions such as those of La Liga and the Spanish Football Federation are just empty words. The discourse towards people is different depending on whether you come by boat or if you wear a suit and tie.

Q. Is Pablo Iglesias still in charge of Podemos?

A. Pablo Iglesias thinks like any other militant, but the one who commands in Podemos is Ione Belarra.

P. The poster of the 'cayetanos', Florentino, the face of Tomás Díaz Ayuso... Why have they chosen this strategy of polarization?

A. Corruption is being naturalized and normalized. When thousands of people died every day in our country, there were commission agents who lined themselves at the expense of the PP and its contracts by hand. They always have the same common denominator: it's someone's brother or cousin. They act like a clan. And by cayetanos I mean those who went out to demonstrate in the pandemic with golf clubs worried about their privileges.

P. They have also embarked on a judicial front.

A. Without being in the City Council we have been able to remove the scandals of the masks or the contracts of Ayuso's brother in the Assembly of Madrid ... What has the opposition to Martínez-Almeida done during these last four years? I have missed more forcefulness on his part.

P. He said he wanted to throw away the Arc de Triomphe...

A. The Moncloa arch is an indecency and an anomaly throughout Europe because it pays tribute to fascist victories. Madrid needs a Department of Democratic Memory.

Q. What do you think of the scandal following the presence of ETA in the lists of Bildu?

A. When the elections come and they lack proposals, the PP always talks about ETA but does not talk about applying the Housing Law or improving life in the neighborhoods.

Q. And what is your economic recipe to improve life in the neighborhoods?

A. For example, by putting 30 million euros of European funds into the districts of the periphery instead of in the centre, as Almeida has done.

Q. And how is it concrete?

A. A great comprehensive plan of neighborhoods to make it easier for people to risk their money in setting up local businesses on the outskirts of Madrid. Local businesses are disappearing. Lavapiés has had many and very good and today, for example, it is impossible to find a fishmonger.

Q. Are you in favor of expanding Madrid 360?

A. We must create Low Emission Zones in the districts because Madrid is one of the European capitals with the most deaths from pollution. I understand people say this is crazy but we're talking about health. That's why I talk about public transport being free.

  • Can
  • Vallecas
  • More Madrid
  • PP
  • Pablo Iglesias
  • Vinicius Junior
  • Rita Maestre
  • More Country
  • Europe
  • IU

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Learn more