The deputy Agustín Moreno, signing of Yolanda Díaz in the Assembly: "I like to be like a blue helmet and talk to everyone"

Agustín Moreno, independent deputy of the Podemos and IU group in the Madrid Assembly, asks for the floor in front of all his colleagues.

The July sun shines brightly, and the waters of the left go down in turmoil: the acronyms multiply while the right trades on the rise in the polls.

In this context, Moreno, a historic CC OO trade unionist, and a teacher applauded by his students at the IES Villa de Vallecas on the day of his retirement (2017), wants to act, he says, as a "blue helmet."

Contribute to building bridges, not opening new wounds.

That is why he looks the rest of the deputies in his group in the eye, and asks about their future, according to two sources present: Does anyone have a problem with me joining the Sumar project of Vice President Yolanda Díaz?, he comes to say.

"And everyone thinks it's perfect," summarizes the response of one of those questioned.

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“I told them that I had committed myself to Yolanda to facilitate a listening process and to prepare educational proposals collectively with a collective group,” Moreno says in a conversation with EL PAÍS about that July meeting with his fellow deputies.

"I am independent, I am not part of any party," he underlines, distancing the idea that he is looking for a position after going through the Communist Party and the electoral lists of Izquierda Unida and Podemos.

"I said that I was already a veteran, that they were going to operate on a hernia... but then I couldn't say no because of consistency," he adds.

“They have asked me to lend a hand in matters of education, formulating necessary proposals in a project of democratic regeneration and that is what I am going to do, nothing more”.

And that is doing.

Making an appointment with him is getting harder and harder.

He has a full schedule.

And a lot of work to do.

“A clear left politics is needed.

The left and right blocs are very balanced, but the right is more mobilized in Spain”, he laments.

That is why he defends that there must be “a citizen movement, there must be street, participation, commitment and unity”, he explains.

And that unity is the one he believes can save the left.

“When in 2019 the rupture of the left took place in the Community of Madrid [when Más Madrid and Más País emerged as a split from Podemos and this party, the PSOE, and Izquierda Unida were maintained] it was the chronicle of a death foretold.

That is why no one should be left out, ”he defends.

For that, he positions himself: “I like to act as a blue helmet, talk to everyone,

The signing of Moreno (70 years old) by Sumar is exceptional.

Among the 35 names announced on Friday as thematic coordinators of the project, there are hardly a handful of political positions risking the public salary they achieved with their party by joining the platform: Moreno or the councilor Marta Lois, from Compostela Aberta, very close to Díaz .

The movement, therefore, is neither easy nor comfortable.

A choice that rhymes perfectly with a biography full of high tension chapters.

Yolanda Díaz, with Agustín Moreno on her left, at the presentation ceremony for the Sumar coordinators.

Alvaro Garcia

A rebel by nature, today's deputy dreamed of making his first communion disguised as an Indian Geronimo.

Without having turned 14, he was already at the Atocha station to get on the train that would take him to Seville to study Official and Industrial Master at the Labor University.

A militant of the Communist Party in the midst of Franco's regime, he lived through the fear of going through the dungeons of the general security directorate of the Royal Post Office, and of Las Salesas, until he was attended by the lawyer Manuela Carmena.

Prosecuted “for propaganda and illicit association”, he fled months later to avoid further arrest, and for this he was sentenced to two years in prison in absentia.

Automatically, his career as an industrial technical engineer was cut short.

He worked in construction and joined CC OO at the age of 27.

They were different times.

He grew a mustache to look older.

He came to the union leadership.

That adventure lasted until 1996, when he ended up on the losing side of an internal war.

As in all that time he had studied, as a hobby, the career of Geography and History, he decided to present himself to some oppositions to be a teacher: he was teaching non-stop in eight institutes in Madrid until he retired.

San Sebastián de los Reyes, Villanueva de la Cañada, Griñón, the Madrid district of Vallecas…

"I was practically without fail one day and I decided to retire out of responsibility, to also give way to new blood ...", describes a stage to which he added those he spent in Ecologista en Acción, and now in the Podemos lists.

A #teacher with a vocation will always be a good #teacher and will change the world around him.

The #students of @MorenoG_Agustin express themselves like this: pic.twitter.com/4yTm9fCpZd

– Lola García (@Imonea) December 21, 2017

Moreno has lived in his flesh the price of the division.

In 2015 he was number three on the electoral list headed by Luis García Montero, who was left out of the Assembly despite getting 132,000 votes, which allowed Cristina Cifuentes (PP) to govern thanks to the support of Ignacio Aguado (Cs).

When the May 2021 elections arrived, in which he participated with Podemos, competing with PSOE and Más Madrid, he invoked a letter by Fito Páez (

) to the discouragement of left-wing voters.

But Díaz Ayuso ended up winning comfortably.

Now, with the 2023 generals on the horizon, Moreno seeks to contribute to making Sumar a platform that unites wills beyond acronyms, with a multiplier effect.

And in this task, the prestige earned on a day-to-day basis can act as a magnet.

"Agustín is a guy who has prestige far beyond Podemos, and I think he has that way of doing politics that fits very well with Yolanda's people project," summarizes a politician who is not a member of Podemos, but who admires the professor, which explains, in part, his ability to act as a blue helmet among the different currents of the left.

"He is a very good person, he always says what he thinks with a very polite tone, and although he can get angry, he is always constructive," he photographs.

"He brings his charisma to the project, and his knowledge, which is great."

Along the same lines, another deputy analyzes the signing, who underlines its coherence: "When you have a reference like Agustín Moreno in educational issues and you are working with him day by day, it cannot seem more than a success that he coordinates the work group of Education to add, because if what matters are policies and programs, it is clear that we are going to defend the same things as now”.

Opinions that are not shared by the conservative caucus of the regional Parliament: "He is a person who knows the educational field well, he is a teacher, which is appreciated, but very conflicting ideas separate us politically," describes a representative of the right.

"For him there is only one model, the public and secular school," he lamented.

"And we defend that the Constitution establishes that different educational projects can coexist, and that families have to be the ones who choose the education of their children," he adds.

“He Keeps the forms.

He is very polite, restrained.

He is not a person with whom confronting is aggressive, belligerent, but his ideological position I do not know if he is radical but diametrically opposed to ours”.

Now, Moreno scans the horizon with a mixture of concern and hope.

This Monday he looked at Italy and saw a warning for Spain that makes it easier for him to explain the reason that has led him to Sumar: “When the left is unidentifiable, its division is endemic and the workers are demobilized, some stay at home and others think that the barbarians may be the solution.”

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