• Politics The last 22 of Podemos: Flight of cadres in the midst of refoundation
  • Cisma Sumar accuses Podemos of "transfuguism" and considers denouncing the five deputies

Podemos has changed trenches. He goes from being within Sumar to leaving the coalition to go to the Mixed Group. And now, from that new role in the opposition, he can already shoot unceremoniously against his two declared enemies, Yolanda Díaz and Mónica García. It's not that before the breakup he didn't do it against them, what happens is that now that he has taken off the corset of the alliance of convenience, he no longer needs to resort to innuendo or implicit taunts. That translates into placing the two ministers in the crosshairs of their criticism and under absolute scrutiny.

The purple party, which has launched its new parliamentary strategy this week, has launched the settling of accounts with the second vice-president and Minister of Labour and with the Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid, whom they blame for their current ills. The first was due to the bad treatment of Podemos and the veto of Irene Montero and other party figures on the lists. The second for heading the party that emerged from their Errejonista split in Madrid in 2019 and that today has wiped them off the map in the region.

The purple leaders wanted both of them for these reasons and they have shown it by coming out in a coordinated and generalized way against both at the first sign of change. Against Díaz to accuse her of assuming the positions of the bosses and against the workers for proposing an "insufficient" increase in the minimum wage. And against García to condemn his commitment to public health as opposed to private healthcare.

Minimum Wage Hike

In Sumar they assume that these examples of the last hours are the "dynamics" that will come throughout the legislature, and that they will focus above all on economic issues, where Podemos will raise its voice to wear down Sumar, and especially Díaz, demanding more of everything. This is what happened yesterday with the increase in the minimum wage. Podemos lashed out at the Minister of Labour for proposing "only 4%" increase in 2024. From the current 1,080 euros in 14 payments to 1,123 euros, "the smallest increase since Pedro Sánchez governed". "It's not that we're talking about an insufficient increase, it's that we're talking directly about the assumption of the employers' proposals, which asked for a 3% increase, as opposed to the class unions that were much more ambitious," said deputy Javier Sánchez Serna, who justified that Labour's proposal is to give "veto power" to the CEOE and take "steps backwards". Podemos wants the increase to reach 1,200 euros.

Sumar is resigned to the fact that it will receive this type of attack from its left and that there will be an escalation of rhetoric that places Podemos in a "demanding position" above the "effective logic of institutional responsibility", now that it no longer holds any position in the government.

Garcia's case is different. With no economic nuances to demand about it, Podemos is clinging to what it can. And he did so with an interview in which he said that he "respects" private healthcare and that his problem is not with it, but with the public money he receives. The purples charged against her: they question her commitment to the public and equate her with the PP.

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  • Yolanda Diaz
  • Ione Belarra
  • Irene Montero
  • Pablo Iglesias