Podemos and Izquierda Unida have announced this Wednesday an agreement to run together on a single list for the municipal and regional elections of May 2023, both in the City Council and in the Community of Madrid.
This alliance, which replicates those already signed at the regional level for the 2019 and 2021 elections, is essential for the survival of these two parties in the main institutions of Madrid.
Thus, neither Podemos nor Izquierda Unida have representation in the City Council of the capital, and the polls show the difficulty that they would have separately to reach 5% of the votes that sets the entry bar in the Madrid Assembly.
"What unites us is the responsibility for the change to reach the Community of Madrid," said Jesús Santos, coordinator of Podemos Madrid, about the regional list, which will be headed by Alejandra Jacinto.
In the case of the municipal, the candidate will be Roberto Sotomayor.
Both are from Podemos.
“The pre-agreement is to guarantee the voice of the working class in the Madrid institutions”, Alberto Aguilera, the IU coordinator, has abounded, who has recalled that the alliance must still be ratified by the bases of both parties.
turbulence
The two parties have been subjected to intense turbulence in Madrid for months.
The PSOE has urged them to join Más Madrid electorally, stressing the need not to divide the left-wing vote with the memory of what happened in the 2015 elections, when the 132,000 votes collected by IU did not help this party enter the Assembly and allowed Cristina Cifuentes to govern.
Más Madrid, for its part, rejects that alliance, and is committed to the one it already has with Equo since previous electoral cycles.
In addition, the leadership of the two formations has been blurred.
Podemos first suffered the crisis unleashed by the split of Más Madrid, which left him without Clara Serra or Mónica García.
Later he saw how Pablo Iglesias, the 2021 candidate, left politics, which did not even premiere in the Assembly.
His number two in those elections, Isa Serra, resigned his seat a month later, when he was still waiting for the Supreme Court to confirm the 19-month prison sentence imposed on him by the Superior Court of Madrid for his participation in an eviction in 2014, something that happened that same July.
Izquierda Unida, for its part, has been part of the Podemos group since 2019, which has reduced its visibility.
The agreement to revalidate the coalitions in Madrid comes after months of tensions between the state leaderships of Podemos and Izquierda Unida for control of Sumar, the project led by Vice President Yolanda Díaz with an eye on the generals and on which the party of Alberto Garzón has already shown his full support.
The relationship deteriorated as a result of the negotiations to compete together in the Andalusian regional elections last June.
That alliance, which gave IU the head of the list, also included Más País for the first time, but the conversations were so rushed that Podemos ended up outside the official registry of the brand,
The differences in recent months between organizations and the attempt to attract Más Madrid to the candidacy had threatened the stability of the alliance.
The pact is still not closed in other key territories where UP is not the predominant brand to the left of the PSOE, such as the Valencian Community.
The Canary Islands have also become a key square with the appearance of Proyecto Drago, the platform of the
former number three
of Podemos, Alberto Rodríguez, a figure in conflict with the state leadership and enormous popularity on the islands.
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