Madrid, the Valencian Community and the Canary Islands, key territories for the alliances of the left in May

The leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra;

the 'number two' of the match, Irene Montero;

and the federal coordinator of IU, Alberto Garzón, last July in Congress.CHEMA MOYA (EFE)

The regional and municipal elections in May will once again test the unity to the left of the PSOE, very affected after the Andalusian elections and with the project of Vice President Yolanda Díaz still halfway through.

Six months before the elections, the group's parties are striving to forge candidates that avoid a debacle like the one in June and allow them to reach November 2023 with the organization intact.

In a context of strong tensions in United We Can (UP), the negotiations seem key in communities such as Madrid, the Valencian Community and the Canary Islands, which include other actors in the equation, in some cases predominant, such as Más Madrid and Compromís.

The stage is still very open today and the role of Díaz, still to be decided, is one of the main unknowns.

Since the return of summer, the talks between the two main UP organizations have not advanced much.

Podemos has just held its primaries and IU is already doing the same wherever there is more than one candidacy.

Both parties convey the intention of reaching agreements and prefer to protect this process from the latest statements by Pablo Iglesias in which the former vice president asked Díaz for "respect", urged her to sit down to negotiate with the parties and reproached IU.

But the climate is one of distrust and the noise does not help.

More information

Pablo Iglesias and Yolanda Díaz, total rupture?

Minister Alberto Garzón's party has given itself until the end of January to reach an agreement with the formation of Ione Belarra.

The slogan on both sides is clear.

No one wants to repeat a scenario like the Andalusian one, where the negotiations were so rushed that Podemos and the environmentalist Alianza Verde ended up outside the trademark registry.

The controversy weighed down the confluence, which obtained only five deputies, compared to 17 four years earlier.

"What cannot be is that each negotiation is an all against one", now warns a source from Podemos.

The party, which claims its leadership role, claims to have the will to close pacts to go in coalition, but demands that these be "fair" and not try to obtain in the offices the representation that was not achieved at the polls.

IU, meanwhile, asserts its territorial implantation and emblematic city halls such as Zamora or Rivas-Vaciamadrid.

Podemos, which in 2019 was left out of the parliaments of Cantabria and Castilla-La Mancha, is now playing to revalidate its presence in the coalition executives of six communities: Navarra, La Rioja, Aragón, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands.

But the battle goes further and acquires great relevance in territories such as Madrid, the birthplace of the party.

In this community, Más Madrid, the main force of the opposition with Mónica García as spokesperson in the Assembly, has already refused to dilute itself in another brand and sources from Podemos, which is running Alejandra Jacinto, also rule out a pact.

The risk of being left without representation exists.

United Left, for its part and despite being aware of the difficulties, does not close any doors and reiterates its maxim of sitting down to talk with "all progressive forces."

In the Valencian Community, another complex territory, the closing of alliances is still a long way off, since Compromís has until January to hold its primaries.

At the moment, and despite the state controversies, the forecasts point to Esquerra Unida and Podem repeating the agreement to attend the regional elections together.

Both parties would also be willing to sit down with Compromís - their deputy in Congress Joan Baldoví has ​​run as a candidate - to discuss a possible three-way pact, but this formation is reluctant to share a ballot.

Yolanda Díaz initially supported the deputy in Congress and ignored the Podemos candidate, Héctor Illueca, although she later qualified her support.

The last gap has opened in the Canary Islands, where the appearance of Proyecto Drago, the movement championed by the former

of Podemos, Alberto Rodríguez, very popular on the islands, further complicates the scenario for his old party, beaten in the last year for several splits.

With the recently launched project, it is still too early to outline alliances and the parties are negotiating at a table with various actors, but Rodríguez's coalition – also a former IU member – with Podemos seems

complex.

The situation varies from one territory to another.

The formations will go together for the first time in Navarra and will repeat in La Rioja.

The confluence is taken for granted in the Balearic Islands (a community in which the judge and current vice president Juan Pedro Yllanes will not compete) or Extremadura, but it seems difficult in other regions where they have historically been presented separately, such as Aragón or Asturias.

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The disparate map of the municipal

In Catalonia, the adhesion in the municipal ones around the common ones of the mayor of Barcelona, ​​Ada Colau, is assured.

The wounds, however, are still very open in Andalusia and the organizations are currently working in parallel.

Although in the case of IU it will be the local assemblies that have the last word, its regional coordinator, Toni Valero, advocates "broad and plural" candidacies that include parties and independents.

While the talks are taking place smoothly in Euskadi, the Galician scenario is more complex.

After the tides reached the Government of A Coruña, Santiago and Ferrol in 2015, the 2019 elections represented a strong setback.

Podemos wants to seek a confluence with Esquerda Unida and what remains of the tides, but the alliance with Anova, of a nationalist nature, is complicated.

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