While all the focuses were on ERC and the possible fracture of the majority, a much more worrying crack for the future of the coalition that governs Spain was opening up in the space to the left of the PSOE.
In theory, everything started from good news: the Andalusian left, except Adelante Andalucía, managed to gather around a single candidacy in which the irreconcilable Podemos and Más País were added (or what is the same, faithful of Pablo Iglesias and of Íñigo Errejón) with Izquierda Unida, very strong in this community, its historic barn.
But the unity process has left such deep wounds in United We Can that it anticipates an arduous battle for control of the national project designed by Yolanda Díaz with an eye on the generals.
Until now, the tension moved in the shadows.
But this week it has become clear that Iglesias, who continues to be a very influential voice in Podemos, is not willing to let his formation take a backseat after six years dominating this space, appointing candidates and directing the strategy.
Yolanda Díaz, who was never a member of Podemos, designs a project above the parties, capable of expanding an electoral base that has been shrinking since 2015. The rest of the United We Can groups — the Comunes, IU, the PCE — support her plan and they have supported without problems the agreement in Andalusia.
But Podemos claims a much higher weight.
In fact, he tried to impose the candidate.
Iglesias even spoke on Monday on Cadena SER of "injustice and humiliation" because his party had to accept the candidacy promoted by the others: Inmaculada Nieto,
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Podemos took the negotiations so far that their signature —along with that of Alianza Verde— was left out of the coalition registry.
The Andalusian case reveals the reluctance of the party now led by Ione Belarra to give up control in the future platform of the vice president.
And it also alarms the PSOE, which is very clear that there is no possibility of achieving a government majority in 2023 if the project of the also incumbent of Labor fails.
“If Díaz does not go well, we have nothing to do.
We will be able to maintain or improve our 120 seats, but it will not matter because we will not be able to form a majority and the rights will govern with PP and Vox.
It is absolutely essential that they fix it.
We know it, but so do they”, says a minister from the socialist sector.
Díaz worked hard during the week to differentiate his "listening process", that tour of Spain that will serve as the basis for his political project, from the negotiations in Andalusia.
"Nothing to see," he reiterated in public.
Díaz mediated —at the request of the formations themselves— so that there was consensus between parties.
She continues with her plans, which she will accelerate after the Andalusians, and she does not want to know anything about internal tensions.
“I am excited about this process.
Above all, because I think there is an alternative, "she said this Saturday in Galicia.
It is not, according to her, to choose, "as happened in France, between the bad and the worst, but there has to be an alternative of hope, horizon, feminism, environmentalism, pacifism," she claimed.
Iglesias, very upset, does link this tension in Andalusia with a possible agreement for the generals.
“Andalusia is a horror and many of us are ashamed.
It is probably the worst way to start something that is necessary in this country, the broad front, ”he said on Monday, when he was very harsh with Díaz, but also with the United Left.
The statements coincided with a very symbolic anniversary.
If on May 9, 2016, Iglesias and Alberto Garzón sealed an agreement with the pact of the bottles so that Podemos and Izquierda Unida would run together for the general elections that June, exactly six years later, the former Vice President of the Government, from the SER, flew the bridges with IU.
“We have worked for many years to make things different.
Podemos contributed to bringing primaries.
We have returned to the offices,
the stabbings, the searches, the leaks.”
And he assured that if this was the prologue to Diaz's national platform, the project could be "considered dead."
03:07
Pablo Iglesias, hurt with Yolanda Díaz?: "I'm not going to answer that question" |
THE COUNTRY
In United We Can and the PSOE there is a lot of discomfort with Iglesias, who, after choosing Díaz as his successor without even consulting him, now seems to want to control the project.
Many interpret that the one in Andalusia is a preventive battle against the most important one, the one that will build the platform for the generals.
“Pablo and his hard core have been making all the decisions for six years and they don't assume that it won't be like that anymore.
They are marking the ground to be able to set their conditions on the lists.
And they have a huge suspicion about Errejón.
But they have to understand that the only possibility for the left to govern is to give Yolanda room to do her own project, sew everything up and expand the space”, insists a UP leader.
Iglesias gave voice to the anger of the hard core of the Podemos leadership – no one from the executive qualified his words or made any public comment on the matter throughout the week.
His admonitions fell like a bomb in the group, although Díaz, as usual, has not responded.
After months of tensions, which have spread to Congress and the Ministries of Equality and Social Rights, relations have become a little more strained.
Although the deputies made an effort to lower the tone, a parliamentary source acknowledges that they move between "demoralization and confrontation."
"Neither some are so bad, nor others so blessed," says another institutional position that did not like the words of the former vice president either.
“Pablo Iglesias should not draw the party line.
It is not up to the outgoing to leave inheritances that are not virtuous”, observes one of the founders of Podemos, Juan Carlos Monedero, who recognizes, in other words, that the current leadership has to emancipate itself.
“There is a mismatch between the opinions of Pablo Iglesias and the freedom of Podemos to establish its own positions,” he points out.
The negotiation in Andalusia was also read in a national key.
A leader of Podemos moved last week that, if an agreement had not been reached, the formulas are still being considered to make a political pact possible that includes in detail the distribution of financing, a complicated fit as the party is legally left out of the coalition —, the rupture in the community would have had an effect on the Government.
Along with Irene Montero, three members of the IU executive work: the director of communication, Clara Alonso, the chief of staff, Amanda Meyer, and the advisor Carlos Sánchez Mato.
The director of the Women's Institute, Toni Morillas, is also a member of the United Left and the Andalusian Communist Party.
With Ione Belarra is Secretary of State Enrique Santiago, leader of the PCE.
The Andalusian crisis has generated divisions and, according to different sources, has left Podemos more alone compared to the rest of the political forces (IU and Comunes, above all, but also Más País or Compromís, open to agreements), which have aligned themselves with the vice president
“The old ghosts”, according to Monedero
"In Andalusia the old ghosts have emerged and the possibility of reinventing ourselves that the broad front implied has been stained a bit," considers Monedero, who also directs the Republic and Democracy Institute, the laboratory of ideas linked to the party.
“Agreements emerge in offices, elbows for photos, discussions on the fringes of programs, and unnatural agreements.
[Íñigo] Errejón, who breaks with Podemos by approaching Izquierda Unida, ends up making a sort of pincer with IU”, he values in reference to what happened, a reading repeated by different sources of Podemos.
Alianza Verde was one of the two parties that was left out of the coalition registry.
Its federal coordinator, deputy Juan López de Uralde, advocates making a "positive reading", although he points to improvements in the process, along the lines of Podemos.
“The sum is possible, we can be more, but some lessons must be learned.
In the future confluences, the candidates have to be chosen by the method that we decide”, and he puts on the table the option of the primaries.
He acknowledges that the negotiations "have had an impact on confidence" between the different formations.
"You have to sew wounds," he adds.
"My great concern is that the three great factors on which a broad front depends, Yolanda, Podemos and IU, after Andalusia are a little further away," acknowledges Monedero.
In reality, Díaz and IU, with Garzón at the helm, seem to be getting closer, while Podemos is expressing its discomfort.
“Yolanda and Ione have to sit down and start over”, proposes the Politics teacher.
The fact that Iglesias appointed Díaz directly without a vote explains part of the current problems, according to Monedero.
"Yolanda doesn't feel concerned about Podemos and Podemos doesn't understand her slights," he warns.
The spokesman for Más País in Congress, Íñigo Errejón, on May 10. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)
While the vice president has been seen in institutional acts with the leader of Compromís, Mónica Oltra;
The spokeswoman for Más Madrid, Mónica García, and the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, or Errejón himself, have not participated in any Podemos event since December, and will not attend the organization's spring party next weekend in Valencia.
Díaz does not clarify either what the role of that formation should be in his project and has been repeating for a long time: "The political parties will have to be there, but they are not the being."
The duel for the lists in a hypothetical candidacy for the general elections headed by the vice president – who has not yet decided on her future – anticipates the toughest battles.
And it remains to be seen if, despite the public discourse in support of the head of Labor, Podemos is willing to accept Díaz's autonomy.
There are not a few voices that affirm that he has chosen, with Iglesias at the head, the path of confrontation to undermine it.
"If the results of IU are good in Andalusia, Podemos will be subject to this type of negotiations from now on," predicts a parliamentary source, who believes that Belarra's party must be "a fundamental actor" in this new space, but he clarifies, he has to act “with intelligence and generosity”.
At the moment, one of the main winners in Andalusia is Más País.
Almost nothing was at stake, and in the negotiation he managed to place his coordinator in the community, Esperanza Gómez, as number one for Seville, ensuring a starting position.
The same day that Iglesias exploded on the radio, Errejón presented the Turia agreement, a “political collaboration” pact with Compromís, Més per Mallorca, Chunta Aragonesista and Verdes Equo.
The alliance extends the possibilities of the project headed by the former Podemos deputy in the territories, and at a given moment, it can serve as the basis for Díaz's structure.
"This agreement is not incompatible with anything," Errejón replied on Monday when asked expressly about whether the pact was incompatible with the vice president's project.
Díaz has enormous political wealth, continues to be among the most highly valued politicians, and is exhibiting the results of his star law, the labor reform, which have surprised even its authors: 700,000 indefinite contracts in April, the first full month in which applied.
They are almost half of the total, when before the reform the permanent ones were less than 10%.
But the vice president has an immense challenge: recompose a political space that had five million votes in 2016 and is now fractured.
Whether the left continues to govern or makes way for an unprecedented right-wing bloc with Alberto Núñez Feijóo as president and Santiago Abascal as vice president depends on its success.
This week it has become very clear that it does not depend only on her: Iglesias, who insists that he is no longer in charge,
Representatives of the formations of the coalition Por Andalucía, in Seville.
From left to right, Mario Perea, councilor of Écija de Podemos;
Ernesto Alba, from the United Left;
Carmen Molina, from Alianza Verde;
Mar González, from Greens Equo Andalucía;
Esperanza Gómez, from More Country Andalusia;
Inmaculada Nieto, from IU;
Juan Antonio Delgado, from Podemos Andalusia;
María José Torres, from the Andalusian People's Initiative;
and José Piña, from Podemos. Alejandro pleads
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