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Podemos has decided to sit from the first minute on the bench of the opposition to the new government. However, he will do so without ceasing to be part of the parliamentary group of Sumar, one of the two legs on which this new coalition at the head of La Moncloa is based.

The leadership of the purple party rules out that its five deputies will become independent of the political space with which they ran in the general elections, which would reduce the allocation they receive by more than 20%. However, they have already made it clear that they are going to fight to boost their "autonomy" with a view to the European elections in July next year, in which they plan to recover the ballot paper with their logo.

The secretary general, Ione Belarra, sent a letter to the militants on Monday in which she directly accuses Yolanda Díaz and Pedro Sánchez of concocting a "strategy" to replace them "with another political force that can symbolically represent the left, but that accepts subordination to the PSOE and agreement with the economic and media powers; that is to say, that it is, unlike Podemos, servile to the de facto powers that still sustain the two-party regime."

In that letter he also reproaches the vice-president for having built "a new one-man party, eliminating the political space that had managed for the first time in 80 years to break the historic exclusion clause" that prevented the "transformative left" from accessing the Executive; to "renounce" campaigning for the purples in the regional and municipal elections in May to, "thanks to the bad result, have more negotiating power" in the confluence of forces that ran together in the general elections; of "vetoing" Irene Montero both in the lists and in her continuity at the head of the Ministry of Equality; and to despise them as interlocutors.

"They wanted to finish us off, but they couldn't and the only thing they have achieved is to make us stronger (...). From this moment on, we are working to recover a government in which Sánchez is not only in charge and so that transforming this country is the top priority of the democratic bloc," Belarra concludes in his letter to his members.

In Podemos they consider that his exclusion from La Moncloa - for which they also blame the president and the leader of Sumar - "curtails the possibilities of profound transformations and real changes". They predict that there will be some progress over the next four years, such as a new increase in the International Minimum Wage (SMI), but they doubt, for example, that there will be a "courageous" housing policy that can solve the problem of access.

In the purple formation they also criticise the fact that Sumar has not given them an assistant spokesperson in Congress, that it did not allow them to take the floor in any of the investitures - neither the failed one of Alberto Núñez Feijóo nor that of Sánchez - nor to present parliamentary initiatives. Even so, they do not contemplate going to the Mixed Group, where they could regain part of the prominence they claim, with the argument that they have already defined their "autonomy" within the coalition and that it has also been supported by their bases.

In the premiere of this new opposition work from within, Podemos yesterday described as "regrettable" the continuity of Fernando Grande-Marlaska and Margarita Robles as responsible, respectively, for the portfolios of Interior and Defense. "This shows that the most conservative wing of the government is winning and it ventures that few progressive transformations are going to take place in the next legislature," said Pablo Fernández, one of its spokesmen.

This newspaper contacted Sumar to ask him if any disciplinary measure is being considered against the five Podemos deputies, but has not received a response.

  • Yolanda Diaz
  • Add
  • Irene Montero
  • Ione Belarra
  • Can
  • Pedro Sanchez
  • PSOE