Sumar, a year of decline before its founding today: divisions, failures and the miracle of 23-J

Alvaro Carvajal Madrid

Madrid

Updated Saturday, March 23, 2024-02:39

• Politics Más Madrid wins the fight against Yolanda Díaz: Sumar will not have its own structure in the region

• Opinion Díaz runs out of batteries

The date is almost round. In 10 days the first anniversary of

Yolanda Díaz

's event in Magariños in which she launched her candidacy for the general elections will be celebrated. Today her new party, Sumar, will be officially founded after the celebration of its first assembly, in which the course of the second vice president of the Government will be confirmed to transcend what was an electoral coalition with fifteen forces to create its own organization. that occupies in the collective imagination the role that Podemos played as a reference brand for the alternative left to the PSOE. A party, yes, with a vocation to be more empathetic, to operate with a less noisy style and to make "useful politics" and the things of eating and working its hallmark, and not the old ideological flags.

That is the theory and another thing is the practice. To begin with, that was not the original idea of ​​​​launching Sumar as a brand for the general elections, but rather it was born with the intention of being just an

umbrella to shelter the thousand broken pieces

in the political space due to the traumatic management of it by

Pablo Iglesias

. It was the maxim that there is strength in numbers. Glue those pieces together and resurrect the options of a left that was bleeding in votes in each new appointment with the polls. This entire reconstruction operation was promoted thanks to the charismatic and powerful leadership of Díaz, the new white hope of the space.

The turn to convert that electoral alliance into a new party has unleashed

quite a few clashes and episodes of tension

in the time that has passed since the July 23 elections until today. And that has caused the founding of Sumar to be done in two stages. A first assembly, which is being held today in La Nave, south of the city of Madrid, where the political and organizational foundations will be laid and a first leadership appointed. And a second conclave in the fall, where all the pieces fit together. Mainly the development of Sumar structures as its own organization in the autonomous communities and municipalities, and also clarifying the relationship with the forces that were part of the coalition on 23-J.

The sum of forces was the main asset in those elections but there is no real sum of interests, but rather a

temporary pragmatism

, and that is its main weakness today. Well, each of the parties has its own priorities and needs. With these colliding on many occasions with those that others have. Thus, issues such as spokespersons, positions on electoral lists or power quotas become reasons for dispute. Which becomes even more evident when the autonomous political forces defend their territorial plots of influence and action.

Nobody wants to be diluted

in Sumar. Díaz is not formally asking for it either. But steps have been taken that cause misgivings. So much so, that there are already forces that set distances. Sumar is founded with a few parties involved and participating from within in the "development" of the project: IU, Catalunya en Comú, Más Madrid,

Verdes Equo

,

Contigo Navarra

and

the Andalusian People's Initiative

. On the other hand, there are other forces that are left out and only interact as electoral allies: Compromís,

Chunta

and

Més

.

Drago Canarias

has both feet more outside than inside.

The central debate of the first assembly has been the role of the parties in Sumar and the spheres of power in the leadership. Díaz managed to secure, despite pressure from IU,

70% of the seats in the governing body

and leaves 30% to be distributed among all the forces involved.

On the other hand, the leader of Sumar

was forced to give in to the autonomies

. There the forces with influence will be able to get their hands on that 70% quota, which will have to be agreed upon by "consensus" and, if not, end in primaries. In addition, they will directly name the remaining 30% in the "party quota." Then there will be exceptions in the Community of Madrid, where Más Madrid ensures that it will control the territory, and Catalonia, where the space is completely ceded to the commons, as a sovereign force.

These types of pulses have marked this year of Sumar's life since the Magariños event that April 2. Díaz lived there at his peak as a strong leader. From then on he has been traveling a path marked by two joys and by many more disappointments and conflicts that have been

wearing down his immaculate figure

.

The regional and municipal elections in May were a severe symbolic setback. The Podemos and IU brands were shipwrecked, their great ally

Colau

lost the Mayor of Barcelona and Compromís left both the Generalitat Valenciana and the baton of command in Valencia. Sumar did not appear but the alternative left was bleeding with Díaz involved in the campaign and angering almost everyone by supporting parties that competed with each other. Especially to Podemos, who did not hide his anger.

The immediate call for elections for July caught Díaz with his alliances unmade. That led to an agreement in record time with all the parties and gave rise to a

hard-fought negotiation

with Podemos that left so many wounds that this union barely lasted until December. The purple ones crushed Díaz's image by accusing her of vetoing

Irene Montero

and emerged as the main agent of erosion of Díaz's leadership in the political space.

Of course, the result of 23-J was a boost for her, since she raised a candidacy in very difficult conditions up to

31 seats

, becoming a fundamental piece to save the coalition government with the PSOE, even if it was with the complication of adding a majority with parties like Junts.

This gave rise to repeating the coalition and signing a satisfactory pact with

Pedro Sánchez

, with five very political ministers and a program agenda with Sumar flags. Along the way, yes, she was touched by Podemos's veto of the appointment of

Nacho Álvarez

as one of them.

From there, Díaz has seen his influence in the Government frustrated. And that has led him to take risks, as he did, to go to meet with

Puigdemont

in Brussels, to promote the Amnesty Law. Sumar asked to go into the details of that negotiation but was relegated by the PSOE, Junts and ERC, who negotiated with three hands.

With an Executive paralyzed by the amnesty and with hardly any government action, Sumar has been running out of arguments to sell to his electorate and has become entangled in his own difficulties in fitting together so many pieces of the puzzle. The election of spokespersons for the Congress group led in September to a serious internal crisis with Podemos and IU in which even

Garzón

denounced the undemocratic practices of decision-making. That has been the central complaint of the parties. And Podemos used it to denounce the mistreatment and neglect by Sumar to break up and go to the Mixed Group of Congress. Then with five deputies, which today is four.

The consequence is the rupture of space. And the result was seen in

Galicia

, where Sumar failed miserably in his first exam in an autonomy:

1.9% of the vote

in Díaz's homeland. This was not only an electoral blow, it was the warning that the brand is not doing as expected, falling in all the polls. The first sign of weakness from him. And now, on top of that, there are elections in Euskadi that threaten to precipitate a new setback.

It does not help, without a doubt, to get back on track that the commons have knocked down the Catalan and Barcelona budgets and have opened a crisis with the PSOE, which blames Díaz for putting himself "in profile" so that those from Colau guarantee the stability of the Coalition government, as well as not exercising leadership in its space.

The first decision led to elections in Catalonia and Moncloa's resignation from the budgets because it does not see it possible to reach an agreement with ERC and Junts. That leaves Díaz in limbo and without the ability to negotiate measures to sell to his electorate before going to war against Podemos in the European elections in June, where the purple ones want to assault their control over space.