• Pacts Podemos and Sumar sign an agonizing agreement to go together to the general elections
  • 23-J The partners of Sumar do not want Irene Montero on the lists but they do accept Belarra
  • Analysis The infinite division of the 'true left': from dogmas to today's money

Unit with sticks. Sumar and Podemos will run together in the elections under the leadership of Yolanda Díaz after an agonizing negotiation and pushed to the limit. A bad start that threatens to bring unexpected consequences. In the short term, a confluence is achieved by force that arises more from one's own needs and urgencies to save face at the polls than from the firm conviction of building a project for the future hand in hand. Therefore, when July 23 passes, the coexistence of this space is unpredictable – or perhaps given the precedents – given the feeling in Podemos of having been subdued.

The coalition agreement was signed around 20.00 hours after a long struggle in which Podemos was forced to "sacrifice" Irene Montero. The one considered by the formation as its "main political asset" was vetoed by Sumar and the rest of Díaz's partners for considering her a scorched and harmful figure for the candidacy. On it weighs not only the wear of representing the hardest line of Pabloism, but also carries the burden of the consequences of the law of only yes is yes and its management of that crisis, which from the PSOE already pointed out as one of the main causes of the collapse of the left on 28-M. No one wanted it and presented it as an "insurmountable obstacle" to unity.

Podemos had no choice but to give in, no matter how much it proclaimed that it did not accept vetoes. The outcome confirms that in addition to being left without a seat, Montero will not repeat as Minister of Equality in the event that there is any possibility of repeating the coalition government.

Montero's exclusion was one of the major stumbling blocks to the pact. The other was the positions on the lists, which Ione Belarra considered to be at risk because of the possibility of losing all representation in Congress with a bad result on 23-J. That fear was not real in view of the positions he will finally have, and that were the same ones he denounced a few hours before signing the coalition to generate a climate of pressure on Sumar to force a review of the conditions. Their argument was to seek an agreement that was "fair" while assuming that their "signature" would be "guaranteed".

Podemos will have eight theoretical starting positions if the results that Unidas Podemos had in the 2019 general elections are repeated. They are number five for Madrid, four for Barcelona; and the numbers for Álava, Granada, Guipúzcoa, Navarra, Murcia and Las Palmas.

Belarra will occupy the Madrid position, just behind Íñigo Errejón, whose formation Más Madrid will have almost half of the key positions on the list for that constituency. Needless to say, what this scenario means for Podemos before one of its bitter enemies. As has happened with the other, Compromís, in the Valencian Community, where Pablo Iglesias considered that they were trying to "humiliate".

OPINION

Considering cold.

Before the corpse of Podemos

  • Writing: JORGE BUSTOS

Before the corpse of Podemos

Loose Cape.

Now yes: the burial of the ponytail

  • Writing: ANTONIO LUCAS

Now yes: the burial of the ponytail

The coalition will be called Sumar. To dry. This means that Podemos ends up diluted under that name. The acronym of the purple party is set aside for the first time in a general election as an electoral claim, because contrary to what has been happening since 2014 its name is considered to be a harmful element.

This fact is a good example to explain what has happened in this process of accelerated reconfiguration of the alternative left to the PSOE. There is a change of cycle. A new force that emerges, Sumar, and another that faints, Podemos. A new leadership that generates illusion and adhesions and politically rearms the space, Yolanda Díaz, and others who fade, Ione Belarra, or directly who are expelled, Irene Montero and Pablo Echenique. That is, everything that remembers or sounds similar to Pablo Iglesias is marginalized. Everything that sounds similar to Diaz's new style is driven.

Despite this will to create something new and exciting for the progressive voter, that with a more moderate and transversal style that Podemos can rival the PSOE, the ballast with which Sumar is born is the way in which it has culminated. Because the spectacle of the last days of negotiations, and especially yesterday, can generate disaffection for the bitter public battle waged with Podemos a month and a half after the polls open.

In its favor, yes, Sumar has that 14 of the 15 parties that have been integrated into the confluence enter much more convinced than this wounded Podemos. IU, Más Madrid, comunes, Compromís or Chunta do process sincere admiration and enthusiasm for the figure of Díaz and share with her the imprint of that new style of doing politics that wants to break through and banish "noise" and anger as signs of identity. The fate of Sumar will be settled first at the polls and then in the internal management of 15 identities that have the challenge of living together. And last.

  • Politics
  • General Elections
  • Can
  • Add
  • Yolanda Diaz
  • Pablo Iglesias
  • Irene Montero
  • Ione Belarra

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