Council of Ministers on Tuesday. The Government approves the Family Law project, a measure that favors care and reconciliation in families in particular need of help. One of those things that justify the existence of the coalition government, according to Pedro Sánchez. At the press conference, there are three members of the Executive, but none is Ione Belarra, the Minister of Social Affairs who has drawn up the project.
The minister spokesperson, the economic vice president and the minister of Social Security appear before the journalists. Nadia Calviño and José Luis Escrivá are there almost as social gatherings. Escrivá has already presented his pension reform. They take him out so that he can once again defend the project that is being voted on this week in Congress.
It is not the first time that Podemos believes that its general secretary or Irene Montero have been vetoed by Moncloa. In the current situation, it is easy to interpret it. Sánchez has decided that his trump card is Yolanda Díaz and that her patience with Podemos has been reduced to a minimum. Belarra is forced to record a video for twitter with which he defends the new law.
This isolation of Belarra, quite incomprehensible if it is held in public that it is a cohesive government, occurs in the not at all fantastic week of United We Can, the last but not definitive scenario of the confrontation-dialogue-rupture (choose the word that makes you less grace) between Yolanda Díaz and Podemos.
The vice president presents her candidacy for the Presidency of the Government this Sunday accompanied by a wide repertoire of leaders of the left in an act in which Podemos has not yet decided if it will be. She will not commit to attend until Díaz accepts open primaries with which to choose the electoral lists.
The moment of truth has arrived and almost no one hides anymore. This Monday the paradox arose that the one who spoke the most on behalf of Podemos and in the most incisive way was Pablo Iglesias. Although he is director of the party’s foundation, he left his leadership a long time ago. Do you continue to influence the shadow or just comment on the play? Yolanda Díaz’s group is convinced that it is the former.
There was a triple portion of Iglesias in two radio gatherings and in the medium that he has founded, Canal Red. Ione Belarra did not say anything. Lilith Verstrynge, who made the last known negotiating attempt with Díaz’s chief of staff, either. There was, like every Monday, a press conference by the two spokespersons for Podemos, who limited themselves to repeating what they had already said in previous weeks and trying not to appear too pessimistic.
In such complicated negotiations, not getting involved in public statements guarantees a better chance of success. For this reason, the discretion of Díaz and Belarra, no matter how much anxiety it causes, is not a priori a bad idea. The one who puts the hot sauce is Iglesias and these days he has provided enough to supply a Mexican restaurant for weeks. “I think it is evident today that Yolanda is much closer politically to Más País than to Podemos and that is completely legitimate, ”he said in RAC1. BADABOOM.
For the bases of Podemos, any mention of Íñigo Errejón’s party can only provoke angry reactions. He confronted the leader and left them stranded in the regional elections. Those words place Díaz outside the space of Podemos and floating in a vacuum, because Más País –not to be confused with Más Madrid– is little more than Errejón’s speeches in Congress.
To show how hot the issue is, a normally circumspect leader like Alberto Garzón also decided to throw in style on Monday. “You have to abandon that logic of the politics of confrontation, of the constant search for who are the loyalists and who are the traitors. The left is plural, ”he said on RNE. BADABOOM.
An easily identifiable evil in many left-wing parties throughout history. Loyalty to the party above all else and the speed with which traitors are exposed. We have already seen this movie. It usually ends badly.
We can demand that the celebration of open primaries be agreed before Sunday in which whoever wants to participate and that it be done in a bilateral pact with Sumar, which they have called on several occasions “the party” of Yolanda Díaz. She denies that she has dedicated herself to forming a party. Sumar only agrees to put in a text that the time will come for the primaries, without saying what kind, but that this will have to be decided later by all the parties that agree to be part of the joint candidacies in the 50 provinces.
Unidas Podemos has never held open primaries that brought together the militants of all its members. They have always voted the lists separately.
You don’t have to be a political genius to know the ultimate reason for the discrepancy. Iglesias put it on the table in Cadena SER: “The good thing about the primaries is that at the end The people rule and what Podemos is saying is: we renounce our census, which is larger than that of all the other parties combined, and we make a new census.”
If that of Podemos is greater than all the others combined, the new joint census will probably have the same characteristics. Primaries open to anyone who wants to vote, as the Democratic Party has just done in Italy, have never been held in Spain in the big parties.
The little secret that no one dares to speak in public is that not because you have more militants, you have more votes in the elections.
With the regional elections two months away, it is clear that the plan of Díaz and his allies, including Izquierda Unida, is that this negotiation be left for after May 28. The suspicion in Belarra’s party is that the others want to postpone the discussion because they think that at that moment Podemos will be weaker due to the result at the polls.
And if the results of all those matches are not good on March 28, Yolanda Díaz will step forward not only as the leader of the candidacy, but as a savior, elevated to heaven with Pedro Sánchez conducting the heavenly symphony. At that time, the number of militants will not seem the essential factor.
Iglesias insists that we are facing another chapter of the attempt to “kill Podemos” in which the right-wing press intervenes, but with new accomplices. He says that there are sectors of the left that believe that “the time of Podemos has ended.” Obviously, he is speaking for the party when he says that. “Yolanda and Sumar have the right to reach agreements with the parties they want and that is not our business.” Our. It would be ridiculous to think that he was going to ignore the future of the party.
The great paradox is that it all began with a personal decision of his: the election of Yolanda Díaz as vice president and future head of the United Podemos list more than two years before the elections. Iglesias opened a window at that moment that Podemos has not been able to or has not wanted to close since then. Everything seemed perfect. “Díaz is a candidate who can take our space much further than I could,” Iglesias said.
Then the vice president decided to go back to the origins of Podemos to create a new political subject that is stronger than its members. An argument similar to the one used by Podemos to convince the IU, and leftist voters, that politics had changed.
Their personal relationships – a matter their respective supporters prefer not to talk about in public – have been severed for a long time.
What is the price of this duel? A fairly obvious one that Iglesias has also spoken about: “It has to end well, because if it ends badly, we are going to a guaranteed disaster.” In case of failure, it could be said that the right will have won the general elections at that very moment. With the leftist vote divided between Podemos and Sumar and losing seats that would be within reach in the event of a joint candidacy, it is unlikely that the PSOE will be able to make up the difference.
In the end, perhaps the prohibitive cost of divorce is what makes the deal possible. It doesn’t look like a love match.