Podemos deepens its crisis.
The Secretary of Organization of the party, Lilith Verstrynge, announced this Friday that she is leaving her position in the Executive of the formation and the act of deputy.
The resignation of the until now number three in the direction of Ione Belarra, a profile of the former minister's hard core, occurs just six months after obtaining the seat in the general elections on the list for Barcelona together with members of Catalunya en Comú .
Her departure leaves Podemos with four deputies in the lower house, now in the Mixed Group after its breakup with Sumar in December, and the Government coalition gains one again.
“Farewells are difficult and sad.
I leave my political responsibilities and also the record of deputy.
A thousand thanks to the activism of Podemos and to the people who have trusted me these years,” she said in a message on the social network X (formerly Twitter) this afternoon without giving more details about the decision.
Sources from the party leadership have limited themselves to “thanking” her for her work and emphasize that she has faced particularly complicated recent months from a position of maximum responsibility, coinciding with the negotiations with Yolanda Díaz's coalition, a task that they describe as “very demanding” and “which has been developed in very difficult conditions,” they highlight.
“Now the fundamental thing is that you take care of yourself and that you are well.
We can always be your home.
Thank you for so much work in such difficult conditions.
A huge hug,” Belarra reiterated on social networks.
“The priority now is you.
We love you and we will continue walking together,” number two, Irene Montero, dedicated to her.
Goodbyes are difficult and sad.
I leave my political responsibilities and also the record of deputy.
A thousand thanks to the Podemos militancy and to the people who have trusted me these years.
— Lilith Verstrynge (@LilithVerstryng) January 26, 2024
Trained in France, Verstrynge (Madrid, 31 years old) started at Podemos as an intern and later as an assistant in the European Parliament.
Later she was an advisor to the Second Vice Presidency of the Government with Pablo Iglesias and participated in his candidacy for the Madrid regional elections in March 2021. Although she was not elected as a deputy then, she became responsible for Organization in June of that year in the team that Belarra promoted and in the summer of 2022 she was appointed Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, a department dependent on Social Rights.
The leader replaced the United Left deputy Enrique Santiago in the position after he lost the trust of the general secretary of Podemos in the negotiations for a joint list in Andalusia.
Verstrynge is the fourth Secretary of Organization that the party has had in its 10 years of life, an especially complex position for a party that has its main Achilles heel in the territorial structure.
Previously Sergio Pascual, Pablo Echenique and Alberto Rodríguez held the position, two of them already out of the formation.
His departure leaves a new gap in a direction that has been diminishing in recent months, with the departure, among others, of the chief economic officer, Nacho Álvarez, that of municipal policies, Jesús Santos, or that of Housing, Alejandra Jacinto, departures that forced Belarra to remodel the Executive in December.
By leaving the deputy record, the party also loses one of its five seats in Congress.
As the list runs, it will be in the hands of the common people, with the entry of Candela López: coordinator of the party with Ada Colau and Jessica Albiach, she was previously a member of the Initiative for Catalunya Verds and is a profile close to the head of the vice president's political cabinet Díaz, Josep Vendrell.
Sumar won 31 deputies in the general elections of June 23.
After the departure of the five Podemos deputies to the Mixed Group in Congress, they remained at 26. Now, Sumar recovers one more.
In parallel, the formation led by Belarra remains in Catalonia without parliamentary representatives.
Yolanda López, the only one who had Podem in the Parliament, has just torn up her card.
Lilith Verstrynge with Ione Belarra, Irene Montero and deputies Martina Velarde (left), Noemí Santana and Javier Sánchez Serna upon their arrival at Congress last August.
Rodrigo Jiménez (EFE)
The party has been going through a serious crisis for months, having lost five of the six regional executives of which it was a part in the May 28 elections.
Furthermore, after the negotiations to form a Government, it was left without any portfolio after having held two (Equality and Social Rights) in the last legislature and the organization faces an ERE that affects almost the entire territory.
In addition to the loss of institutional representation, last December the five deputies decided to break with Sumar and join the Mixed Group of Congress to exercise their “political autonomy.”
Frame leak
The flight of cadres has also been a constant in recent times (such as that of the former candidate for Madrid City Council, Roberto Sotomayor), many of whom have ended up in the project of the vice president, who is preparing her first assembly for March 23 .
Outside the party, this same week, Canal Red, the television network directed by Pablo Iglesias, canceled the program of Podemos co-founder Juan Carlos Monedero, another of the voices until recently close to the management, although without an organic position.
Iglesias is still today a figure with authority and enormous prestige among the bases and the departure of the political scientist from his channel shows a distancing from the current strategy of the organization, as he himself explained on networks.
Even without knowing the exact causes, Verstrynge's departure once again hits the party in its lowest hours.