Izquierda Unida, Más Madrid, Equo and Podemos are open to negotiating a joint electoral list in one of the leading municipalities of the left in the Community of Madrid, Rivas-Vaciamadrid (90,000 inhabitants).

The possibility of building an example of the progressive unity sought by the second vice president of the central government, Yolanda Díaz, on a Madrid scale, with the Sumar platform, has been confirmed to EL PAÍS by four sources familiar with the approach, one for each party involved.

However, three of these interlocutors warn that the project is not yet closed, stress that the merger process is delicate and stress that the operation cannot be taken for granted.

With municipal elections scheduled for May 28,

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"Here, in Rivas, there is no noise or anger on the left, and there is also personal harmony between the politicians involved," explains a source familiar with the operation, who moves with maximum secrecy.

"We are in line with what Yolanda Díaz defends," adds this interlocutor about the vice president of the Government, who has been involved for months in "a listening process" to articulate an electoral option for the generals that can attract the electorate that is on the left of the PSOE.

"That is why IU, Más Madrid and Equo are willing to reissue the electoral agreement that they already signed for the 2019 elections, and to join that pact to Podemos."

Many things have changed in the four years since those municipal ones.

In 2019, Íñigo Errejón broke with Podemos and created, together with Manuela Carmena, Más Madrid.

That was experienced in the purple party as a betrayal.

Impossible to agree with what was considered a split in which dozens of positions and familiar faces of the party promoted by Pablo Iglesias were also enlisted.

That old wound now obliges those involved to act with the utmost delicacy in the project of achieving a joint list, fearful that the stitches that the passage of time has provided will blow up at any moment, and make an agreement impossible.

Pedro del Cura, former mayor of Rivas.PACO MARISCAL (Europa Press)

"We are not going to put problems so that there is a joint list," says a leader with stripes in Podemos.

"Although nothing is closed yet, we are going to try, because all the organizations see it favorably," he continues, specifying that Rivas may be the first of several cities in which similar conversations take place.

And about the multiplier effect of uniting the entire left to the left of the PSOE, he concludes: "What is clear is that we are not going to endanger the IU government in Rivas."

The national directorates of all the parties involved in the process are being promptly informed, according to another source involved in the talks, which stresses the key role that former mayor Pedro del Cura, who is very close to Vice President Díaz, is playing as manager of the possible agreement.

"No agreement has yet been closed, this is a prudent, ant job," specifies this source.

"Rivas is one of those places with an idiosyncrasy that allows the agreement, because there is a natural alliance, which does not depend on the Sumar project," qualifies another politician familiar with the situation in the Madrid municipality.

"These municipal identities do not have to be extrapolated to other constituencies, where the same logic does not apply," he adds.

"But figures such as former mayor Pedro del Cura, or the current mayor, Aída Castillejo, facilitate it, because they make the rest feel that everything belongs to everyone, not that they are from a party that agrees with others."

left bastion

"We have not spoken with Podemos, but we are not closed to their inclusion," says another involved in a possible agreement in a key municipality for progressive formations in the Community of Madrid.

Because Rivas is one of the strongholds of the left in the region: the municipality has been managed by the PSOE or IU without interruption since 1987. At the moment, the IU governs with a team in which the PSOE, Podemos, Equo and More Madrid.

These foundations, believe all those involved, should facilitate the construction of a common project for the municipal elections on May 28.

At the end of the day, it is about transferring the governmental alliance articulated throughout the legislature to a single electoral ballot.

A logic that would place the current mayoress of the city, Aída Castillejo (IU), with options to be the consensus candidate, although nothing has been decided yet, since the weight of each force on the lists has not even been negotiated.

In parallel, the Sumar de Díaz is taking steps that affect the Community of Madrid.

One of the main collaborators of the vice president, Agustín Moreno, has his sphere of action here, as a deputy for Podemos in the autonomous Parliament.

The representative of Más Madrid in the Assembly, Eduardo Rubiño, who is presenting himself along with Rita Maestre on the list for the City Council of the capital in the next elections, has also participated in a sectoral act of the minister's platform ("there is a very good relationship of mutual aid, but each one maintaining our autonomy and independence ”, they point out in the party of Mónica García).

And Rivas may be the next regional nod to the project.

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