Vicente Coll Vilar de Santos (Orense)
Antonio Heredia (Photographs)
Vilar de Santos (Orense)
Updated Saturday, February 10, 2024-02:15
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We take advantage of the fact that
José Antonio
paints the twilight with cigarette smoke to ask him if the division between Sumar and Podemos is felt in this corner of Galicia. And he gives us a master class in retranca: «Can we? "We can all be able... It's another thing to want."
Vilar de Santos
(Orense, 792 inhabitants) was part of the Galician laboratory in which a decade ago the crisis of nationalism was taken advantage of to successfully test unity on the left of the PSOE. Of that today only the memory of those who promoted it remains and, above all, of those who see how the struggles in Madrid condition what happens 500 kilometers away. In 2020,
Galicia en Común
, the last vestige of the tides that revolutionized the region, disappeared from the political map after triumphing four years ago: it lost more than 200,000 votes in the four provinces and its 14 regional deputies.
Now, Sumar arrives at 18-F in the middle of a battle with Podemos and trusts his few chances of entering the Galician Parliament to a Yolanda Díaz effect in his first electoral appointment as a national leader in the territory where he cut his teeth as a politician.
But the polls - the average places Sumar still below the 5% necessary to obtain a seat - and perceptions at street level seem to show that no one is a prophet in their own land. Even more so when the space he directs reaches the region in which the last legislature sank, mired in a Cainite war.
Vilar de Santos was the
municipality
of the premonition four years ago. In this municipality in the La Limia region, the shock of the 2020 regional elections resonated like no other point in Galicia: the
purples
went from being the first force in 2016 with 48.95% of the votes to nothing. 0.94% opted for this ballot or, in other words, literally four neighbors. Even Vox, a party with little roots in this territory, gained more support in this enclave, very close to the Antela Lagoon, once one of the most important wetlands on the Peninsula, and today dry.
Those that have also suffered from the causes of drainage, here and in much of Galicia, are the tides. His spirit barely figures in Sumar, despite trying to establish itself as a common home for all the acronyms of the alternative left. The national rupture with Podemos - which this week even ended with a complaint to the National Police for the "illegal" entry into the offices of Congress - reached the brink of the pre-campaign and blew up any hint of unity in a region in which the space was frankly weakened in 2020.
Beiras, with Yolanda Díaz a decade ago.EFE
"Sumar arrives at the elections in an uncomfortable situation, without time to consolidate," comments
Luis Rei
, who was the leader of
Marea in Pontevedra
. He regrets the fight between acronyms and the electoral consequences that this will have, since it distances the options of recovering presence in the Galician chamber. "It's a lost opportunity," he summarizes while disdaining the attitude of the
purples
, who finally decided not to run within Sumar and present their own candidate,
Isabel Faraldo
. "We can be willing to die by killing."
Hence, in recent weeks the trickle of Podemos departures towards Sumar has accelerated.
Gloria Alonso was Podemos's
number two
in Galicia until mid-December
and now she is part of the team of
Marta Lois
, Galician candidate for Sumar. "The intention was to go in unity, but state events precipitated" the current situation, she reflects in conversation with this newspaper. She says she is aware of how the "rupturist context" can condition the electoral panorama of the left in Galicia, but she does not hold Sumar responsible for what happened: "We have not broken with anyone."
Beiras has recently shown his support for the BNG of Pontón.EFE
The spirit of Sumar in the region, rather, has been to concentrate a plural left with multiple sensitivities. Díaz achieved this by introducing his work team, made up of well-known faces of Galician politics from the PSOE, the BNG and Podemos. Also from the union level and other movements and fabrics of civil society and activism. But the internal division, the echoes of the struggles coming from Madrid and the crisis due to the fragmentation of space have worn down Sumar before even entering the campaign.
Perhaps not all the reasons for this weakness can be explained on their own merits. A recent photograph confirmed the lack of power compared to his electoral rivals: on January 14,
Anova
's national spokesperson ,
Martiño Noriega
, signed the
pax galega
with
Ana Pontón
, who also hugged again with the historic founder of the BNG
Xosé Manuel Beiras
. Nationalism called for "healing wounds" after a decade of divisions and today Pontón dreams - and calculates, with the polls in hand - of wresting the Xunta from the Popular Party. Months ago, even before Sumar and Podemos stopped understanding each other, Noriega and Beiras slammed the door on Díaz: they would not be part of his electoral project despite the fact that they
were allies in
Alternativa Galega de Esquerda
(AGE). It's not that long ago, but several lives fit into that decade.
"They have a lot of young people behind them"
It is advisable, at this point, to brake and return to street level. To Vilar de Santos, to his four votes to Galicia en Común where before there were 257. Where did they go? Almost all to BNG. «They are full. They are working hard everywhere and the effort is paying off,” say
Walter
and
Beni
in the Social Center bar. «The BNG has grown a lot. "They have a lot of young people behind them." So much so that
O Block
regained its position as Mayor of this municipality last May after several years integrated into local brands.
Antonio Míguez
is the mayor of this small
Gallic village
of nationalism in an eminently right-wing province like Orense. "Overwhelming majorities," he calls it to define the victories in Vilar de Santos of the "Galician and nationalist" left. Now she celebrates the success of her training in the council, and predicts a great result for Ana Pontón thanks to the persistence and work done in recent years by the party: "The BNG is returning home, to where we have always been," she assures. excited.
This is a feeling that generally spreads throughout Galicia: that no party has the muscle and spirit that the PP and the BNG demonstrate in non-electoral periods, as a Podemos supporter admits. «The BNG is strong because it has been working for many years and has capillarity. "It permeates the territory and society very well," explains the economist and political scientist
Miguel Anxo Bastos
to justify how a party that has recently landed in Galician politics like Sumar - despite having veteran faces from other forces - contrasts with a organized for years with a single objective. "It's a very compact game," he says. Quite the opposite of what Díaz demonstrates with the unstable situation of his formation. When asked if the voters who opted years ago for
En Marea
and Galicia en Común will change their choice this time for the BNG despite being a nationalist force, he does not doubt: "The nationalist division is very diffuse in Galicia."
On the contrary, who should pay attention as the BNG strengthens is the PSOE voter, as constitutionalist
Roberto Luis Blanco Valdés
warns : "Be careful with socialist abstention: 'If my vote is going to go to nationalism... I'll stay at home'”, he points out in the face of a possible demobilization of the PSOE electorate, as proven by the polls at this point in the campaign. Like Bastos, he highlights how "the BNG always dominates" and outlines its electoral strategies to reach the polls with a backpack of four years of work. The unification of Pontón with Beiras, he believes, knocks out Sumar's aspirations, as he is forced to place his expectations on a very personalistic campaign focused on Díaz: "he is going to try to run the campaign. "The candidate has a very low profile."
Will there be a Yolanda Díaz effect? "If there hasn't already been...", Bastos responds without answering the question that hovers over the vice president's big date with the urns of her land. The paradox is that if Sumar manages to enter the Galician Parliament he will probably have the governability of the left, which will give him the key to the Xunta. «If Sumar enters, [Alfonso]
Rueda
will not be enough to govern. He has a certain chance of entering," remarks Rei, who is "optimistic" despite the difficulties that the space has faced in recent times and the decline that it is dragging on in Galicia. A decline that is largely related to the leadership and succession crisis that the new policy has demonstrated, especially in Madrid, and the lack of voter confidence in the current leaders. «We no longer connect with politicians. They don't look like Fraga, like
Carrillo
, like
González
," say
Ángeles
and
José
tiredly from the door of their home in Vilar de Santos, where it seems that in the end the sun does want to and can set.
A DELICATE SITUATION
3.93%
In 2020,
Galicia en Común lost 400,000 votes and its 14 deputies in the regional Parliament, which confirmed the decline of the tides.
4.9%
In 2024?
The latest Sigma Dos poll for ELMUNDO places Sumar a few tenths away from winning a seat. Podemos would be left off camera.