Podemos has given the starting signal this Saturday to the pre-campaign of the regional and municipal elections on May 28.
A little more than 40 days after those elections and in full conflict between Podemos and Sumar, the platform led by Yolanda Díaz with an eye on the general elections scheduled for the end of the year, the appointment has become a vindication of the role past, present and future of the party with veiled attacks on the second vice president of the Government.
In the midst of an uncomfortable Cierzo wind, the Podemos Spring Festival in Zaragoza has served both the former general secretary of the formation, Pablo Iglesias, and the current leader, Ione Belarra, and her number
two
, Irene Montero, to reaffirm the organization's identity, distance herself from Díaz's style and try to assert her weight in the project.
Iglesias has made an apparent call for unity this Saturday "despite the insults, the neglect and the contempt", again referring to the vice president's team, with whom he has been very critical in recent times.
And Belarra has defended the role of his formation against those who want a left "that is an ornament of the PSOE": another poisoned dart, another covert allusion to Díaz.
Montero, for her part, has taken advantage of her speech to respond to the vice president, who in recent weeks has recognized herself as "fed up" with being always considered "the woman of" some man (Iglesias, Pedro Sánchez or Íñigo Errrejón ).
In an act of
Diario.es
this week he went so far as to say that the men of the left “are a rock”.
“I already told [Isabel Díaz] Ayuso once: I am a woman of, of Ione Belarra and a woman of Podemos, and I am proud to belong.
I am proud to never be alone, to be the woman who is part of a collective project, because we are not going anywhere alone", said the Minister for Equality, answering now, no to the president of the Community of Madrid and leader of the PP in the region, but to the Galician leader.
"Of course we are women of, women of our parties, of collective projects, aware that nothing can be achieved alone, and that if we are capable of shouting yes we can, it is because we always do it together", she insisted in the central act of the days, in front of some 2,400 people.
Together with regional and municipal candidates and with the presence of some parties of the international left, Belarra has defined the party as the political force "that does not shut up" or "abandon its people" against those who "want a left that returns to to be the one from before, relegated to the corner of the board, an ornament of the PSOE without the capacity to decide on the politics of this country”.
"We are not that and we are not going to be," he warned.
Without naming her, references to Díaz have peppered her intervention.
The minister has appealed to the militants to tell them that they need them
“building hope”.
"But not hope as an artifice, not hope as a spring speech that does not change anything," added the general secretary of Podemos, alluding to one of the main ideas of Sumar's speech.
He has also congratulated himself on the agreement on the housing law, reached this Friday, of which his Ministry (Social Rights) is a co-proponent and that Podemos has pushed in these three years of legislature as one of its main banners.
"Don't be fooled with electoralism, today everyone is going to come to put on the medal," he pointed out after this week party sources were very upset in private at what they interpreted as an attempt to lead the second vice president. at the end of the negotiations to unblock the norm, finally agreed with Esquerra and EH Bildu.
Yolanda Díaz presented Sumar in society a few days ago with the notable absence of the leaders of Podemos, starting with Belarra and Montero, and Iglesias, who has put aside the stripes in the formation but continues to have an enormous weight in tone and in Podemos strategy.
Both in the possible fit with Sumar and in the relationship with other parties, such as Esquerra and Bildu.
Both Montero and Iglesias have referred to cooperation with these two forces.
"Yesterday's [the housing law] should lead many colleagues to understand that ERC and Bildu are strategic allies," said the former vice president, alluding to Díaz or the commons, who compete electorally against the Catalan nationalists.
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The head of Equality, for her part, has put the strength of Podemos on the table as a guarantee to achieve progress.
“You tell us many times, 'you have to do whatever it takes to prevent the right and the extreme right from taking over.'
Of course it is important, but it is even more so that what remains is capable of continuing to promote transformations.
Don't let your pulse tremble, because if they don't win in four years ”, she has warned, insinuating that an agreement with Sumar that dilutes the influence of Podemos would not work, before defending a unitary candidacy in the general elections.
“We know that Podemos is very different from Sumar, Más Madrid, Compromís.
But we believe that a coalition agreement between Podemos and Sumar is better and we are willing to contribute that capacity to be the engine of transformations to a collective project to conquer more rights”,
01:12
Ione Belarra proclaims that Podemos will not be "an ornament of the PSOE"
The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero (left) and the Secretary General of Podemos, Ione Belarra (right), at the event. Photo: JAVIER CEBOLLADA (EFE) |
Video: EUROPA PRESS
This Saturday's appointment is preceded by the latest friction in space this week after the publication of a promotional video that indirectly charges against Díaz, Izquierda Unida or the PCE for "putting themselves in profile" on issues such as NATO or the war of Ukraine, and after the rupture of the pact for the formations to the left of the PSOE to attend together on 28-M in Cádiz.
“I know that there are many people, many militants, very hurt and offended.
But this formation has to continue defending one of its most important elements of identity: unity.
It is not always easy: when they insult you, they belittle you, when all the media cannons of power build an offensive story, I understand the feeling of many colleagues who demand that respect", he advocated along the same lines as Montero Iglesias first thing in the morning. day.
"But this political formation has to have a high vision and show that walking together is a condition of possibility for things to change," he added.
The uncertainty about the agreement with Sumar for the generals has grown in recent times.
Despite having designated Iglesias two years earlier as the natural successor of the electoral space,
The party leadership did not support Díaz on the day of her launch as a candidate, on April 2.
Podemos demanded to attend that act to close a bilateral pact on the primaries model, an issue under which the real debate lies: the power of the organization in the future project, which they want to be dominant.
“
Keep reaching out despite the insults, the neglect, the contempt.
There is something much more important than the dignity of all this militancy.
Being able to continue transforming this country and trying to stop a process of involution in Europe that has a lot to do with the dynamics of the war regime and with the growing weight of NATO in the political decisions of the continent”, Iglesias pointed out.
In his speech, Belarra has also valued the "courage" of Podemos, a force capable of "withstanding" the pressures so that his proposals see the light, even recalling his commitment to have a coalition government.
The minister has also thrown darts at the Socialists, such as the reference to what she considers their "arrogance" to prevent that pact that led him to lose votes in the 2019 electoral repetition, or to the turn of the Executive's policy regarding the Sahara, when criticizing that the PSOE "kneels before the Kingdom of Morocco".
Tune in with Meloni
In a talk entitled
The ideological dispute of the 21st century: geopolitics, neoliberal crisis and democracy
, Iglesias has questioned that social democracy itself endangers European democracy.
“What does it mean that Pedro Sánchez praises the tune even in regard to the anti-migration policy of the Italian fascist government?
That a shift to the right is taking place in Europe, dominated by the political approaches of NATO.
The problem with this is that the first victim of this process could be democracy”, pointed out the also director of Canal Red, a recently created internet television.
“Praising Georgia Meloni a week before she declares a state of emergency to give special powers to security forces to act against people whose only crime is having tried to flee misery and poverty is the beginning of the end of European democracy."
At the central rally, Belarra denounced that the powers that be have tried to put an end to Podemos "since it was born."
The same idea has been expressed by Montero to conclude: “To all the adversaries, who know it clearly, he has before him the most alive dead man they have ever seen in his life.
We are not going to stop, we are not going to stop because there is still a lot to transform, ”he warned to rousing applause from the public.
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