Podemos and IU accelerate the pacts for the May elections and reach a coalition pre-agreement in Murcia

Javier Sánchez Serna, during a Podemos press conference last November in Madrid. Borja Trillo Sanchís (EFE)

Five months after the municipal and regional elections, Podemos and Izquierda Unida accelerate the pacts in the territories to run together in the elections on May 28.

Both parties have confirmed this Tuesday a pre-agreement in the Region of Murcia that is open to adding organizations such as Alianza Verde —whose presence is taken for granted—, Equo and Más Región, the affiliate of the party founded by Íñigo Errejón.

In full reconfiguration of the space to the left of the PSOE with the project led by Yolanda Díaz for the general elections at the end of this year, the confluence contributes to giving a certain stability to the alliance between formations beyond Murcia, although there are still pitfalls.

After months of complex negotiations, the pact gives the head of the community list to María Marín, the spokesperson for Podemos in the Assembly and one of the two deputies it currently has.

In the case of the town halls, the talks are advanced, although there are still some fringes in at least five of the 22 towns initially contemplated and in which Izquierda Unida would obtain a greater number of mayoral candidates.

The formations dispense with the name United We Can and agree that the brand includes the acronyms of all the parties that compose it.

The preliminary agreement reached in Murcia, the first between the two organizations at the regional level, manages to avoid a situation like that of Andalusia, where the parties agreed

between six political forces and

a coalition from which Podemos, reluctantly, finally ended up off the hook.

A crisis that weighed down the options of the confluence from its birth and that resulted in a bad result at the polls last June.

The initial pact, ratified by the IU bases in a meeting held on Tuesday afternoon, establishes that number two on the regional list will also be for Podemos, although in the case of only two deputies, this would be rotating (two years We can and two other UI).

Numbers three and five would be occupied by Izquierda Unida.

Negotiations already include an economic deal.

Podemos will contribute 80% of the resources to the campaign and Izquierda Unida 20%, but later the purples will receive 66% and IU the remaining 33%.

As for the brand, the formation led in the community by the secretary of the Congress Table, Javier Sánchez Serna, will lead the regional one (Podemos-IU), but in the municipal elections the formula will vary according to the support obtained in 2019. Other acronyms may be added to this name, such as Más Región or Equo, with which Izquierda Unida has been talking for months.

"I know that they have a vocation to reach a unitary agreement," says José Luis Álvarez, general coordinator of IU in the Region of Murcia.

The leader values ​​"positively" the latest proposal from Podemos to work on a joint candidacy,

Sources from Podemos are also "satisfied", they assure that the municipal and regional elections are a "priority" and that they will continue working to "achieve unity" in other territories.

The formation highlights the work of Marín in the Assembly as the "sole opposition" to the Government of PP and Vox, in environmental matters and particularly in policies for the protection of the Mar Menor.

discrepancies

However, there are still discrepancies in not minor details of the agreement.

Sánchez Serna has released a document in which it is established that Podemos and IU will be the organizations that give up space —based on their assigned quota— to other parties, in order to "continue expanding support."

“We can include Alianza Verde.

For its part, IU undertakes to include Equo y Más [Región] in its part”, reads the text, which, however, sources from Izquierda Unida consider “outdated” and on which, they say, they are still working.

The two organizations recognize that alliances have yet to be closed in some town halls, where other local actors join.

‼️Unity is the most important thing.

From @podemosmurcia we proposed a unity agreement between Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Alianza Verde and others, which the IU bases ratified last night 🤝 We are going to raise an alternative to 27 years of corruption and setbacks from the right.

pic.twitter.com/ja0qPkdJrx

— Javier Sánchez Serna (@J_Sanchez_Serna) January 18, 2023

The May elections are considered as a first round of the elections scheduled for the end of the year and the result of each party threatens to condition any negotiation to run with Sumar, the platform built by the second vice president.

A priori, the concentration of the vote around a single ballot increases their options.

To date, Podemos and IU have closed confluences in Navarra, La Rioja and Madrid, where they compete with Más Madrid.

Izquierda Unida marked the end of January as the deadline to specify the final candidacies for January.

With less than two weeks to go before the deadline, most deals are still up in the air.

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