Sumar resists although it loses 7 seats and remains as the fourth force, even if it tried to repeat the coalition

It does not get representation in six Autonomous Communities, although it achieves second place in Catalonia and third in Madrid, Galicia, the Balearic Islands and Asturias

The party led by Yolanda Díaz, Sumar, has broken into its first general elections, managing to retain the majority of the space of United We Can, although it loses seven seats, but remains the potential partner of Pedro Sánchez. Of course, he has not achieved his goal of being the third political force in Spain, as he longed for during the campaign.

With more than 99% scrutinized, those of Yolanda Díaz have managed to exceed three million votes (12.31%) and will have 31 seats in Congress, which will serve to retain that space on the left. Together with the PSOE and the rest of the allies of the past investiture bloc, they would surpass the right in seats but without achieving an absolute majority.

As for the territorial distribution, Sumar has been left without a seat in six autonomous communities -Cantabria, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Navarra, Extremadura and La Rioja-, while it has taken second place in Catalonia and third in Madrid, Galicia, the Balearic Islands and Asturias. In the rest of the regions, it has been the fourth, except in the Basque Country, which has been the fifth force.

Yolanda Díaz's electoral coalition faced these 23J elections as the space 'to the left of the PSOE', in which formations such as Drago Canarias, the Aragonese Chunta, Alianza Verde, En Comú Podem, IU, PCE, Ara Més, Más Madrid, Más País, Podemos, Compromís, Iniciativa del Pueblo Andaluz, Verdes Equo and Batzarre have come together.

During the campaign, Díaz has tried to put aside the tensions between Sumar and Podemos given the exclusion from the lists of historical leaders of the 'purple' party, such as Irene Montero and Pablo Echenique, with the intention of consolidating this left-wing space with a third place that would allow them to form a tandem with the PSOE to continue with the coalition government.

And in this attempt, Sumar has obtained 31 seats in these elections of 23J, staying four of the 35 deputies that United Podemos obtained in the November 2019 elections. Of course, to these we would have to add the three seats that the coalition of Más País and Compromís obtained.

The closest example to the space that Yolanda Díaz has formed occurred in 2016, when a large part of these formations --Podemos, IU or Compromís, among others-- presented themselves under the name Unidos Podemos, achieving its best historical result since the irruption of the party led by Pablo Iglesias in terms of seats, with a total of 71 deputies.

Of course, this confluence between Podemos, Izquierda Unida and other left-wing parties lost a million votes compared to the 2015 elections, where Podemos and IU presented themselves separately. Here, the 'purple' formation recorded its true blossoming by exceeding 5 million votes. Meanwhile, IU obtained two seats under the Popular Unity brand with 923,133 votes.

Since that year, at the confluence of Unidos Podemos, internal disputes began to arise, especially with the sector in favor of Íñigo Errejón and also with Anticapitalistas, which became frequent and ended, over time, in the departure of both.

Also at the regional level there were several conflicts with the state and regional leadership, as happened in Aragon, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Cantabria or La Rioja, and high-profile resignations such as that of the former general secretary of Podemos in the Community of Madrid, Ramón Espinar.

IT DERIVED IN MORE PARTIES OF THE LEFT

These departures from Unidos Podemos were causing the appearance of new parties, such as that of Iñigo Errejón, which made its first entry at the municipal and regional level under the Más Madrid brand and made the leap into national politics in the 2019 elections with Más País.

Other formations such as Compromís decided to put aside the electoral brand that united them with Unidos Podemos in the 2016 elections and, for the 2019 general elections, they presented themselves jointly with Iñigo Errejón's party, obtaining a total of three seats. It also happened with Equo, which joined Más País.

This also caused the division of the vote in the so-called 'PSOE left' in the 2019 elections, since Unidas Podemos, with all its confluences, obtained 35 seats and 3,119,364 votes, while the coalition of Más País, Equo and Compromís was left with three seats and 559,110 votes.

AND DÍAZ TOGETHER ALL

And it was in 2022 when Yolanda Díaz's space began her first adventures in politics, even without the name Sumar, but with an electoral coalition for the Andalusian elections, which was signed 'in extremis', with Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Más País, which won five seats with 281,688 votes (7.68%).

Different luck ran in the negotiation that Sumar and Podemos held for the municipal and regional elections on May 28, where they failed to reach an agreement and only the 'purple' formation appeared in these elections, where it again suffered electoral bleeding, with the loss of all its territorial power, being left out of Madrid and the Valencian Community.

In this context, the electoral advance of the generals forced Sumar to reach an agreement against the clock with all the territorial forces of the left, such as Compromís, Més or the Chunta Aragonesista, which he finally managed to close including Podemos, but with various tensions due to the absence of Irene Montero.

*SUM July_2023 November_2019 June_2016 .

*Votes 3,031,804 3,678,474 5,049,734 .

*Percentage 12.31% 15.3% 21.1% .

*Seats 31 38 71 .