The negotiations of Podemos with Sumar to form a unitary candidacy for the general elections of 23-J have burst into the formation in the midst of a territorial crisis. The poor results harvested in the municipal and regional elections last Sunday, where the party was left out of several regional parliaments, have aroused criticism and resignations in some territorial delegations. The last of them has been the executive of Podemos Baleares, who has announced his intention to resign en bloc this Thursday. Throughout Wednesday, 10 of the 36 members of the Autonomous Citizen Council of Castilla-La Mancha and the secretary of organization of Podemos in the Canary Islands, César Merino, had already resigned. These facts are added to the criticism of the acting vice president of the Balearic Government, Juan Pedro Yllanes, who directly requested the resignation of the secretary general, Ione Belarra, the secretary of organization, Lilith Verstrynge, and the parliamentary spokesman, Pablo Echenique.

Podemos, which in these elections was presented in coalition with IU in 10 of the 12 communities in which there were regional elections, has disappeared from the Assembly of Madrid, as well as from the Valencian Parliament and the Canarian Parliament, two territories where they governed in coalition with other parties. In the Balearic Islands, where they also had representation in the regional executive, they have gone from having six to one parliamentarian, and the leader of the party, Antònia Jover, has not even achieved representation. The party has resisted in Murcia, Extremadura and La Rioja, although in none of these communities will they be able to govern. Only in Navarre, where the candidacy has garnered three deputies, can they be relevant to revalidate the Government.

More information

This is how the polls of the next general elections start

In view of these results, Jover announced on Thursday that the entire regional executive has made its position available to the party and has pointed out that it assumes "full responsibility for the result." "I regret that we have not been able to convey the joy and hope necessary to encourage people to go and vote. We believe that the proposals we have made are correct, but we have not been able to get them to the public," he added. Regarding the negotiations of Podemos with Sumar, Jover has affirmed to be "convinced that the people are waiting for this confluence". "People want to continue with a coalition government, with which an agreement must be reached as soon as possible. We will all go out to the street to push so that we have the best possible results, "said Jover.

From now on, the Autonomous Citizen Council convened for June 10 must ratify the resignation of the 13 members of the regional executive. The state leadership of Podemos will be in charge of convening primaries to choose the new executive. However, party sources in the Balearic Islands admit that this will not happen until after July 23, so the current leadership will continue in its position in the meantime.

The leader of Unidas Podemos in the Balearic Islands, Antònia Jover, during the press conference in which she announced the resignation of the regional leadership of the party, on June 1, in Palma de Mallorca.Isaac Buj (Europa Press)

The resignation of the dome in the Balearic Islands has been the last known after this Wednesday transcended the resignation of 10 of the 36 members of the Autonomous Citizen Council of Castilla-La Mancha. In this region, Podemos has no representation in Parliament since losing its three seats in 2019. In an internal letter addressed to the militancy, to which EL PAÍS has had access, the signatories assure that they are leaving because of "the lack of political will to reach agreements with other forces and the egomania of the current regional coordinator", José Luis García Gascón. "The strident strategy of the current leadership only has an echo within our party, showing itself irrelevant and frightening to the progressive voters of the region that we aspire to represent," reads the letter, which calls for the resignation of the secretary general for having lost 30,000 votes compared to the 2019 elections.

"No competence in the organs of the party"

In a statement released on Wednesday, the leadership of Podemos Castilla-La Mancha has assured that the signatories had already resigned in 2021 and that "they no longer held any competences in the organs of the party". However, although the signatories resigned on that date to the internal government areas of the party, eight of them were still part of the Autonomous Citizen Council until Wednesday.

In the Canary Islands, the shock wave of the electoral result has also been felt. The secretary of organization, César Merino, announced his resignation due to the election result. "You have to be generous in victory and brave in defeat. I have tried to be consistent all my life and this was not going to be less," Merino wrote on his Twitter account on Wednesday, where he shared the resignation letter addressed to the militants. "This electoral defeat does not define us, but impels us to redouble our efforts and find new forms of mobilization and action," Merino wrote in the letter.

I present my resignation as Secretary of Organization of @PodemosCanarias we must be generous in victory and courageous in defeat. I have tried to be consistent all my life and this was not going to be less. An electoral defeat does not define us. #SíSePuede
https://t.co/xu6FQGacdp

— César Merino (@CsarMrino) May 31, 2023

In other territories such as Navarra or Galicia they have always shown an open predisposition for Podemos to be integrated into Sumar. Begoña Alfaro, candidate of the formation in Navarra, and Borja San Ramón supported the act of April 2 in Madrid in which Yolanda Díaz officially announced her candidacy for the presidency of the Government. In the Basque Country, resignations have been ruled out for the time being. "It is not the time to leave things and go home," said Wednesday the leader of Podemos in Euskadi, Pilar Garrido, who also hopes that a political space to the left of the PSOE can be formed as soon as possible "with a strong Podemos rowing" in it and the coalition government is revalidated.

More than a dozen parties have shown their willingness to adhere to the candidacy of the second vice president of the Government, although talks to close a pact are still underway and the fit is complex. Among them, Izquierda Unida, Catalunya en Comú, Más Madrid, Más País, Compromís or the ecologists Verdes Equo and Alianza Verde. Although it was not at the April launch, Podemos expressed earlier this week its intention to work towards the agreement. The deadline for coalition registration is eight days.

Subscribe to continue reading

Read without limits

Read more

I'm already a subscriber