• 23-J Sumar registers as a political party to "group" within 15 formations and independent figures
  • Elections Yolanda Díaz calls Belarra and launches the thaw with Podemos for an express pact
  • 28-M Results of the municipal and regional elections 2023
  • Maps Results by street: who did your neighbour vote for in the Community of Madrid?

The countdown has started and the last second falls on June 9 at 23.59 hours. That is the deadline to register the coalition that brings together the alternative left to the PSOE and the race until that moment promises strong emotions. Because up to 15 parties have to put aside the quarrels and agree to breathe voters and enthusiasm into the candidacy that Yolanda Díaz will lead for the July 23 elections. It will not be easy because the territorial allies already claim to reflect in the lists the weight at the polls and corner Podemos.

Sumar starts negotiations with the aim of joining forces, in the energetic and political sense of the word, at a time when the left is still shocked by the global blow received in the regional and municipal elections. No one can be happy, but there are some who are better off than others. Podemos faces the negotiations naked after 28-M. "We are the worst political force in this election result," Pablo Iglesias acknowledged on Monday. The party is at a minimum: it went from 47 regional deputies to 14 and was left out of the parliaments of Madrid, Valencia, the Canary Islands, Castilla-La Mancha and Cantabria.

These data, added to the fact that IU has achieved many more councilors than Podemos, places the purple formation in a position of extreme weakness, when precisely within the political space most parties are questioning what should be the weight of ministers Belarra and Montero in that shared future. In addition, without primaries in sight – Iglesias assumes that they are "impossible" because of the deadlines – Podemos has run out of weapons to force others to accept that it continues to play a preponderant role. Negotiation will be a matter for the "plumbers" of organizations.

Reflect the weight of 23-J

In this regard, several of the parties called to go under the umbrella Sumar claim to distribute power and electoral lists taking mainly into account the recent result of the polls, and that the new balances "represent" the weight that came out of the elections.

Compromís has had no problem making a demand in public that others transfer in private. In the case of the Valencians, they claim that their strength in the Valencian Community legitimizes them to lead the electoral lists in Valencia, Alicante and Castellón. "We are a Valencian political project, which has a capacity for work and leadership that is already part of the Valencian political arena, and we want to take this opportunity to mark leadership," remarked yesterday the spokesmen of the coalition Àgueda Micó and Alberto Ibáñez, reports Noa de la Torre. The party leadership approved yesterday to form a negotiating commission with Sumar.

Calls to reflect the weights of 23-J would leave Podemos shivering over its disastrous results. That is why the response of the purple, through the mouth of Pablo Iglesias, has been an attack against Compromís. The former secretary general has said that they are already living "things that have to attract everyone's attention." "Yesterday Compromís, which criticized that Podemos demanded a bilateral negotiation with Sumar, demanded bilaterality, that his name has to be on the ballot and that he does not accept to go with any person from Podem and that they have to head all the Valencian candidacies. That is the way in which Baldoví's party says here we are, "he recriminated this Wednesday in an intervention on TV3.

Aware that others will do the same, Iglesias has demanded that everyone "make an effort and be generous" because the situation is "very complex" and there is no time to make primaries to define the lists. In this sense, he has transferred all responsibility for reaching an agreement to Díaz. "The pressure that Yolanda has on her right now I don't wish on anyone." "The responsibility that the leader has is 90% and the rest of the actors have to shoulder the shoulder," he said, to finish with a "my mother what is coming on top."

Iglesias has stressed that Podemos has to be counted on because it is "the condition of possibility that this goes well." "Unity is essential," he stressed, "not achieving it would be a failure of Yolanda and her party and a failure of all." The former secretary general of Podemos has acknowledged that "there is no alternative" to that pact. "If there is no agreement, people will run at us and people will say that's it, there you stay. This is a huge pressure for Yolanda."

More Madrid more than Podemos in 12 CCAA

Some figures that explain the weakness of Podemos in the negotiations. Más Madrid – the only party of the left that rose on 28-M – achieved 615,000 votes in an autonomy, compared to a Podemos that in the computation of the 12 achieved only 498,000 votes despite presenting itself in 10 of them in coalition with IU, which logically inflated those results. Those of Alberto Garzón achieved alone in Asturias and Aragon another 60,000 votes -14,000 more than the purple ones in those regions-.

On the other hand, and also related to Aragon, the most voted force in the space close to Díaz was the Chunta Aragonesista, which negotiates its inclusion in Sumar, with 33,400 votes and three seats. Podemos had 26,000 and one deputy.

The case of the Valencian Community is also very symbolic of the purple disaster. Compromís won almost 350,000 ballots. It is four times more than the alliance of Podemos and IU, which stamped itself at the polls with only 85,600 votes, which meant being left out of the Cortes.

The rest of the territorial parties such as Catalunya en Comú, of Ada Colau, or Batzarre in Navarra were allied with Podemos, so it is impossible to measure the impact on votes. However, it can be done in Andalusia, where the enormous strength of the United Left in the most populated region of Spain is emerging. As collected by the Efe agency, IU rose with 800 councilors against the 25 councilors of Podemos. The paradox is that then these two parties have a very unequal representation in the Andalusian Parliament, the result of the 2022 candidacy. IU has one seat while the purples, three. Now, in the face of the negotiations for the generals, IU aspires to have a really important role in the lists that are presented in Andalusia.

Negotiations have already begun. Díaz has registered a new party called Movimiento Sumar with an "instrumental" vocation to legally sign the coalition, but also with the aspiration to "group" everyone. IU is overturned and Verdes Equo and Compromís, too. The doubt remains in Podemos.

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