“I am going to take a step forward:
I want to be the first president of my country
, I want to be the first president of Spain,” said Yolanda Díaz, current second vice president of the PSOE-Podemos coalition government and minister of Labor and Social Economy.
He did it on Sunday, during his launch for the December national elections
as leader of Sumar
, the platform he launched nine months ago and with which he toured all of Spain.
Supported by more than 15 left-wing formations, the political project of Díaz, a 51-year-old Galician labor lawyer,
reveals Podemos,
the minority partner of the government coalition who feels excluded, after having flirted with Yolanda Díaz being the candidate from a coalition that included them.
Because the party that Pablo Iglesias created in 2014 expected preferential treatment from the vice president who
was anointed
by the former secretary general and founder of Podemos when he resigned from politics and gave him his vice position in the government.
The second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz during the presentation this Sunday of her candidacy for Sumar.
Photo EFE
To the power
In May 2021, after being badly injured by the electoral blow of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, of the Popular Party, when she swept the polls to preside over the Community of Madrid,
Pablo Iglesias hung up his loot:
he left the party and the vice presidency of Spain, position that he had negotiated with Pedro Sánchez when they signed the government agreement that in 2019 made them the first coalition of Spanish democracy.
"I did not like that he pointed at me, it is not at all democratic," Yolanda Díaz had admitted months after having assumed the vice presidency that used to be from Iglesias.
"I accepted to be vice president, nothing more," she added.
In fact,
Pablo wanted many more things than that and I said no.
Born as a worker and the daughter of a militant of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) in hiding, Yolanda Díaz is today
the hope of the parties to the left
of the PSOE.
Yolanda Díaz, hugs the writer Gioconda Belli, during the presentation of the candidacy.
Photo EFE
"Everything starts today," Díaz said on Sunday during his launch at the Antonio Magariños pavilion in Madrid.
“We are tired of guardianships, of being ignored.
We don't belong to anyone but ourselves," added the candidate,
distancing herself from any paternalistic attitude
that Podemos tries on her and her political projection.
Ione Belarra, Minister of Social Rights and the 2030 Agenda of the government and general secretary of Podemos, spent the whole week asking for a gesture from the Minister of Labor: "Yolanda Díaz has it in her hand that Podemos is at the presentation of her candidacy .
Let's sign a statement pledging to
hold an open primary
. "
Diaz never picked up the glove.
He opened the doors of his call wide, "without marrying" any of his possible future partners.
Although Podemos is the one who could bring the largest volume of voters to that left-wing conglomerate that Yolanda Díaz intends to lead.
And while on stage she proposed that "we must talk about reducing the working day without reducing the salary",
from the audience they applauded her,
among others, the current Minister of Consumption and federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida - a party that Yolanda Díaz left in 2019 -, Alberto Garzon;
the mayoress of Barcelona, Ada Colau -and a reference for the Catalan arm of Podemos-, and Iñigo Errejón, a partner of Pablo Iglesias in the founding of the populist party that he later left to create the formation he presides over today, Más País.
In the front row
“There were more than 15 political formations that today compete with each other and they knew how to rise to the occasion.
Therefore, whoever is not there must explain it ”, was Díaz's response this Monday when he was asked about
the absence
of the Podemos leadership at his launch event.
Moderate and almost whisper-speaking, the Minister of Labor
would also be liked by President Pedro Sánchez
, if the polls in December put him before the alternative of having to reissue a coalition government.
During the last motion of no confidence, which was presented by the extreme right of Vox and which Sánchez dodged without much concern, Yolada Díaz was the only government minister who, along with the president and blessed by him, had her turn to speak in Parliament
to defend the management
that was being attacked by the motion of censure.
The ministers of Podemos, Ione Belarra and Irene Montero, in charge of the Ministry of Equality, asked for a clue to be able to speak during the session, but Pedro Sánchez only shared a pulpit with Yolanda Díaz.
It hasn't been that long since Pablo Iglesias left Díaz his vice president's chair, but he doesn't even want to hear about what he himself said almost two years ago: "Yolanda Díaz is the best Minister of Labor in the history of our country -assured Iglesias at the time -.
She may be the next president of the government of Spain."
bp
look also
Interview with Catalan President Pere Aragonès: "I am convinced that Catalonia is going to be an independent State"
Spain: a vote for women's rights fractured the PSOE's alliance with Podemos in Parliament
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