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Yolanda Díaz has spent almost a year simmering her new political project. That if a tour of Spain to "listen", that if a participatory process to elaborate "a country project for the next decade", that if dialogues to multiple bands to bring positions closer and unite the thousand and one pieces of the left in Spain. All that plan to go step by step has now been blown up because, suddenly, the advance of the elections forces him to start running at full speed. Pedro Sánchez's move forces Sumar and Podemos to declare a truce, cease hostilities and sit down to negotiate immediately to go together on July 23.

It's a race against the clock because they barely have time to argue. It must be an express pact because the deadline to get it and register the coalition ends in 10 days. Exactly on June 9 at 23.59 p.m. And not only would it be an agreement between Sumar and Podemos, but also involved fifteen parties of the left that are called to converge in this candidacy to the generals and that mostly already made an appearance in Magariños, when the vice president announced her step forward.

The leader of Sumar has assumed the "challenge" of uniting the entire left and to demonstrate it she was the first who got involved yesterday to achieve it. Díaz telephoned in the morning the general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, to thaw the relationship with the purple formation and to open a new phase of negotiation to seek the "unity" of all the political space located to the left of the PSOE, report sources familiar with that talk.

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Opinion.

Pedro Sánchez lies to the lonely

  • Writing: JORGE BUSTOS

Pedro Sánchez lies to the lonely

Until now, the channel of communication and negotiation between Sumar and Podemos had been given at a second level. Specifically, between Díaz's chief of staff, Josep Vendrell – an experienced politician who comes from ICV and who was a deputy in Congress with the commons – and the Secretary of Organization of Podemos, Lilith Verstrynge. They were the ones who talked and exchanged proposals months and weeks before Magariños' act. Until it was impossible for an agreement to be reached so that Podemos would agree to be present at the announcement of Díaz's candidacy. He was the only and great absentee that day, because all the other parties interested in the confluence with Sumar came with a high representation.

Diaz and Belarra yesterday propitiated the thaw after the announcement of Sanchez to guarantee the best of wills to agree. Now the negotiations will fall back to the more technical teams. In the specific case of Sumar and Podemos, they are led by Vendrell and Verstrynge. But here we must also count on the participation of those responsible elected by the other formations, especially the United Left and the commons, which are the main political supports of Díaz in the construction of the new project.

Vendrell also began yesterday a round of talks with "all" the other parties to lay the foundations for the frantic dialogue that is coming for the next few days, where all kinds of meetings will have to be held to move forward.

Despite the requirement set by the deadlines to register the coalitions, in Sumar they point out that there is "a lot of advanced work" of the previous months, when Vendrell and his team addressed talks with the fifteen parties involved. That work, it was emphasized at the time, was what led everyone except Podemos to be present at the Magariños event. Sources of some of those parties assured then that they went to the Madrid sports center without having closed any concrete agreement with Sumar. A response that replied to Podemos, which spread the affirmation that if they went it is because they had everything agreed. And that's why they wanted to close their deal as well.

In this it is true that all of them except Podemos manifest an unequivocal attitude to converge. We can depend on how. That is the difference that has so far prevented a pact. Basically, it boils down to what the distribution of "power" between the different forces should be. That is, how the positions on the electoral lists will go, the governance of the coalition, the distribution of money and the quota of assistants per party.

Primary

These discrepancies seem destined to be resolved in a primary. At least, it is what Podemos demands, which believes that its weight should be decided by the sympathizers of the space and not by a union of the rest of the formations to take away its preponderant role. The absence of a commitment to "open primaries" has been to date the excuse used by Podemos not to close a commitment with Díaz.

Due to the dates, it seems impossible to organize a primary with fifteen parties in less than 10 days but there is more margin to arrive on time to the deadline for the registration of the electoral lists (June 19). Which is when you actually have to distribute the posts. The key is in the will. Some parties are more enthusiastic about celebrating than others. Of course, it would not be a simple procedure, since a new census must be carried out. This involves people registering to vote and then agreeing on verification mechanisms to prevent fraud. Just the mobile number? Also the DNI? Those steps take time. And time is not enough.

Diaz's first reaction yesterday, after the debacle, was to get involved in unity. "The message received last night was very clear: you have to do things differently. No distractions," he said. He declared that "from this very moment" he gets to work for it. Later, and after his talk, Belarra said that Podemos "will be where it has always been: working for unity." For its part, IU emphasized that Sumar and Díaz are "the best opportunity" and said that "only from the sum of political organizations and civil society" can an "exciting" project be built.

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