The electoral advance forces Podemos and Sumar to sign a coalition agreement in 10 days

After a fateful night for the left, the advance of the general elections to July 23 announced by President Pedro Sánchez imposes a new truce. The call, made public on Monday, disrupts the plans planned by the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, who under the brand Sumar seeks to lead a new project to the left of the PSOE for the generals. She intended to resume negotiations to define the final configuration of that platform from June, once the hangover of 28-M is overcome, but the electoral law mandates and those of Díaz will have only 10 calendar days from the call to register a coalition with Podemos and the rest of the formations called to integrate into Sumar. That is, the deadline expires on June 9. The challenge is enormous, although the urgency may precipitate a pact that otherwise would have dragged on for months with an obvious risk of attrition. The party's general secretary, Ione Belarra, has already announced that negotiations to achieve "unity" are open.

According to article 44 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime, "the parties and federations that establish a coalition pact to jointly participate in an election must communicate it to the competent Board within ten days of the call". The regulation adds that this communication must state the "name of the coalition, the rules by which it is governed and the holders of its leadership or coordination bodies." A good amount of details that, today, are not yet defined.

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To date, and especially since the presentation of Díaz's candidacy to the general elections on April 2, the main unknown lies in knowing if Podemos will be part of that coalition. Belarra's party demanded to previously agree on open primaries and decided not to attend the launch ceremony, on April 2, when that agreement with the vice president was not reached. "Our formation is already working to give progressive citizens the news they have been waiting for so long. So that this political space is presented together with the elections and we go out to win. Not only to revalidate the coalition government, but to govern with more strength, "said Belarra, Minister of Social Rights, on Monday in a brief appearance before the media at the headquarters of the party, without offering details on whether or not he knew the advance.

The results of this Sunday – Podemos disappears from the Community of Madrid, Valencia and the Canary Islands and loses practically all its autonomous power – have left very touched the organization founded by Pablo Iglesias, which this Monday in the early hours, before the appearance of Sánchez, already appealed to the "essential unity" of the left as a formula to survive before some "extremely difficult generals". From Canal Red, the television network he directs, the former vice president of the Government has raised to a commentator the hypothesis that Sánchez offers an agreement of the PSOE with the space to his left to go together in a good part of the constituencies, a movement similar to that articulated in the French legislative last year, when Jean-Luc Mélenchon achieved a coalition that brought together socialists, environmentalists, eurosceptics, anti-capitalists and communists. "The right would be divided between PP and Vox and Pedro Sánchez could be placed as the candidate of a broad progressive popular front in which he would carry together with the PSOE in the same candidacies to the political forces located to his left," Iglesias has launched, whose argument is assumed later, in many cases, by his own party.

For all reaction, Yolanda Díaz has declared on social networks that she goes out "to win". "The message received last night was very clear: you have to do things differently. No distractions. From this moment we are working to win on July 23. I take up the challenge. This country has a lot of future. These are times of audacity. We have a project to continue responding to the social, ecological and economic challenges of our country. Against the black Spain of Feijóo, we went out to win. People are waiting for us," said the second vice president. The leader of Sumar, who has seen how the candidacies to the left of the PSOE collapsed this Sunday – also with loss of power for the commons in Barcelona or Compromís in the city of Valencia – must now focus on closing against the clock the negotiations for a broad confluence that avoids an electoral punishment to the division in that political space.

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