Pablo Iglesias demands open primaries from Díaz to define a unitary candidacy around Sumar

Pablo Iglesias has entered fully this Sunday into the debate on the configuration of the electoral lists of the space led by the second vice president Yolanda Díaz for the next general elections.

The former secretary general of Podemos, who has participated in the presentation of the book by the group's parliamentary spokesman, Pablo Echenique,

, has called for his successor in office within the coalition government for open and "binding" primaries to define a unitary candidacy around Sumar, the political project promoted by Díaz with the support of fifteen parties.

“At a time when it is so important that we go together, we must give the word to the real people.

You have to listen with a binding nature, that the people decide how that is going to be built”, has opined Iglesias, a still very influential figure in his party, who has also explicitly rejected that the lists be decided “in the offices”.

"There are many political formations that will never agree on what each one weighs," the former vice president acknowledged.

"Neither for you nor for me, let the people vote who has to be in the institutions representing a collective project of different political formations, because if not, it will be difficult", he stressed after considering that it would be more complex than the construction of that unit was made "from the offices, that a leader meet with the heads of all the parties and negotiate the lists."

Iglesias, openly distanced from whoever was one of his closest colleagues in the Government, has hinted that this formula, that of the prior agreement between organizations to later ratify a list agreed upon in advance in primaries, would not be the appropriate method.

At the end of last year, he himself was already urging the head of Labor to "clarify soon" her candidacy and reproached her for the treatment given in recent months.

In Podemos they believe —and even more so if the agreement is closed after the May elections— that this could lead to their candidates having less representation compared to those of other formations.

“That anyone who wants to, whether or not they have a party card, can say 'these are going to be my representatives and these are not.'

That there is no one here exclusively because someone has pointed a finger at them ”, she has defended.

"From there, everyone will be able to act politically with the legitimacy of 'I am here because the people have voted for me to be there,'" she added.

Actually, both Díaz and Izquierda Unida have been in favor of defining the lists in primaries.

Alberto Garzón's party advocated for them in a political document presented last January and in the negotiations between Sumar and the rest of the organizations this issue has already been addressed, according to sources familiar with the talks.

However, the formula and the census chosen for this process are not yet defined.

"Unity is essential for there to be a coalition government in this country," Iglesias conceded this Sunday.

“There must be a unitary candidacy of all forces.

From Podemos, from Sumar, from IU, from the commons.

Also, hopefully, from Más Madrid, Compromís, the Aragonese Chunta and from all the forces on the left that want to join”, claimed the former general secretary of the formation, who for months has been very critical of the times and the Diaz strategy.

Last November, the former leader came to ask the head of Labor for "respect" for his party in a message that strained relations between the vice president and Podemos.

Since the beginning of the year, the noise between both parties has decreased and Díaz has even shared several photographs with the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero,

one of the main electoral assets of the formation of Ione Belarra, despite the known differences between the two.

The crisis unleashed in the coalition around the PSOE proposal to reform the

has not managed, for now, to break the fragile unity of space and the talks to form a coalition, although very initial, are already underway.

The debate on the lists will take place in the coming months, probably after the regional and municipal elections in May.

Before, Díaz must confirm his candidacy for the presidency, a formal question that will officially open a new stage in the negotiations.