Podemos facing its 10th anniversary: ​​Bet on the Europeans, clash with Sumar and attempt to assert its 5 seats

His situation is far from his first stage, marked in 2023 by his territorial debacle, various casualties and the fracture with Díaz

MADRID, 13 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) -

Podemos celebrates this Wednesday its tenth anniversary of its emergence on the political scene, marked by the clash with Sumar after his vote against the unemployment benefit reform, its commitment to the European elections to try to rearm itself and with the unknown of how will attend the next Basque elections.

Furthermore, the party is trying to rebuild its territorial structure, weakened after the setback of the last regional elections, and with poor prospects for the elections in Galicia, according to the polls released.

Since its presentation in the public sphere on January 17, 2014 at the Teatro del Barrio, in the Madrid neighborhood of Lavapiés, the situation of the party is far from its initial strength, in the heat of the effects of 15M, when it was the surprise in the European elections that year by winning five seats with its former leader Pablo Iglesias and his speech challenging bipartisan politics.

Podemos's peak moment was in 2015 when it garnered five million votes, which first earned it 69 seats in Congress and 71 in the repeat election that year, this time in alliance with IU. Furthermore, he was key in promoting the candidacies of popular unity that were achieved by the so-called 'municipal councils of change' in Madrid, Barcelona, ​​Cádiz, Zaragoza, La Coruña, Ferrol and Santiago.

The internal disputes and the first electoral decline in the regional elections of 2019 and a strong setback in the general elections that, however, earned Unidas Podemos, where the purples were the hegemonic force, to enter the coalition government with PSOE.

After Iglesias left politics in 2021, the bicephaly that was attempted to be articulated with the leadership of Ione Belarra in the party and vice president Yolanda Díaz as an electoral poster did not work, given that Díaz began to take steps towards the project that would crystallize in Add, as an axis to regroup the left.

This movement crystallized in a long process in a coalition for the 23J elections of fifteen forces, including Compromís and Más Madrid, which aroused distrust and subsequent criticism from Podemos due to the weight given to it in the new relationship of forces in the left, where it stopped being the hegemonic force against Sumar.

Now, the situation for Podemos is far from that peak moment with five deputies in the Mixed Group, after the break with Sumar after a succession of strong disagreements, which nevertheless focuses its strategy on becoming a key actor during the legislature in the Congress, once it has ceased to be a force of government.

In their new political roadmap, the Morados proclaimed their full political autonomy, making it clear that their votes are not given away and are negotiated in Congress, and the party leadership proclaimed that they were no longer subject to the discipline of the Government. In this way, their plan is to exercise a position similar to the ERC, Bildu or BNG to influence from their seats in an Executive with a parliamentary minority.

A position that was confirmed with the first decrees of the Government this Wednesday, when it supported the anti-crisis decree after agreeing with the PSOE on commitments to suspend mortgage evictions for vulnerable families until 2028 and overthrow the unemployment benefit reform, as their demands were not met. that the reduction in excess contributions in pensions for those over 52 years of age be withdrawn because it is a "cut".

This rejection has intensified the struggle with Sumar, who on Wednesday raised his criticism of Podemos by accusing them of irresponsibility, of aligning themselves with PP and Vox and of moving out of "personal hatred" and "animosity" against Vice President Yolanda Díaz.

Meanwhile, the purple party replied that they were not going to accept a "tragala" because it is not the way to govern when you are in a minority and that if the Government soon brought back the decree without that point they were willing to support it.

The purple ones also face a complicated electoral cycle where, in the case of Galicia, they will face Sumar electorally after the party's militancy rejects the pre-agreement to go together in those elections, with negative prospects for a space that is now extraparliamentary after the debacle. in 2020.

However, given the bad relationship with Sumar, the talks for a coalition in Euskadi remain open although the climate has become tense after Díaz's regional brand proposed Alba García Martín as a candidate. The election of a person who until that day was an advisor to the formation was branded by Podemos as an act of disloyalty. All this also with a demographic context that points to a retreat of the non-sovereignty alternative left in the face of Bildu's strength.

In turn, the purples have deposited their great electoral asset in the European elections where the former Minister of Equality Irene Montero stands as the main candidate to lead the candidacy, waiting to resolve her primaries.

This electoral event seems essential for the purple ones where they will be measured against Sumar, with a single constituency system and with a vote that does not move in terms of government election but rather through a more ideological component, as pointed out by several purple sources who see it as feasible. enter the European Parliament with the pull of the former minister and begin to rebuild the party. And they will do so with a symbolic movement, since it was in the European elections where the party emerged as a new relevant political actor.

On the other hand, the party has suffered a trickle of casualties from party leaders such as Sofía Castañón, Nacho Álvarez, Alejandra Jacinto, the former autonomous coordinator of Madrid Jesús Santos, the former candidate for the City Council of the capital Roberto Sotomayor, the former director of Rights of the Animals Sergio García Torres or the loss of the leader of the commons in the Catalan Parliament Jéssica Albiach. In the case of Santos and Sotomayor, they did so, for example, with criticism of the drift of the state leadership and its conflict with Sumar.

For 2024, the party has launched a primary process to elect new coordinators in eight autonomous communities, also marked by resignations, especially after March 28, in Aragon, Asturias, the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community and the aforementioned case of Madrid.

All this with the collapse of its regional presence given that the party is an extra-parliamentary force in Madrid, Valencia and the Canary Islands, apart from suffering a strong decline in the Balearic Islands, Asturias and Aragon.

This meant the loss of their autonomous governments with the exception of Navarra, where their only advisor in the entire country is the coordinator in the regional community Begoña Alfaro, who has also expressed her disagreement with the state leadership for their rejection of unemployment benefits.

Looking ahead to these regional primaries, members of the state leadership such as Isa Serra (Madrid), María Teresa Pérez (Valencian Community) and Lucía Muñoz (Balearic Islands) aspire to be regional leaders, in addition to the re-election of Conchi Abellán and Javier Sánchez Serna in Catalonia and Murcia, respectively. And in the Canary Islands, deputy Noemí Santana is running for regional coordination.