Covadonga Tomé: The Podemos candidate in Asturias locks herself in the party headquarters to demand that her electoral list be kept intact | Spain

2023-04-21 19:31:15

The Podemos candidate for the Presidency of the Principality of Asturias in the 28-M elections, Covadonga Tomé, locked herself up this Thursday along with a dozen like-minded at the headquarters that the formation has in Gijón, to demand that it be respected in its integrity the regional candidacy that was elected months ago in primaries by those registered. Tomé is facing both the national leadership of Podemos and the regional one. It is the last chapter of the continuous disagreements between the leadership of the formation in Asturias and the critical sector, which achieved an incontestable majority in the primaries.

The confinement has been raised at the end of the meeting between the candidate, from the critical sector, and the interim coordinator of the party in Asturias, Rafael Palacios —who took over the leadership in January due to the medical leave of the coordinator, Sofía Castañón—, to address the internal crisis of the party in the community. According to Tomé, Palacios insisted at the meeting on his intention to eliminate number four, Jorge Fernández, from the list, who has recently been suspended from affiliation for six months and from participation in bodies and working groups for two years.

The decision of the regional leadership motivated the confinement, in addition to Tomés, of Xune Elipe, Laura Tuero and the protagonist of the controversy, Jorge Fernández, among other militants related to the critical sector who threaten to prolong the protest until it is decided not to exclude Jorge Fernández from the list for “a merely political decision,” according to Tomé. The candidate explained that the management’s proposal involves removing Fernández and incorporating the councilor for the last two terms in the Oviedo City Council, Ana Taboada, related to the sector led by Palacios, to fourth place.

“We have seen things that embarrass us,” said Tomé, who has assured that Rafael Palacios “killed Langreo’s confluence candidacy and has gone away to colleagues. Something that I suspect they want to repeat with me. The candidate repeats that the support received justifies the decision she has adopted: “In Asturias we have never been afraid to fight for issues that we consider fair and with the support of more than 60% of the militants it is not reasonable that the regional leadership abandoned the meeting without any agreement.

At the same time, she has demanded that the policy of sanctions and expulsions cease, since in recent months there have already been 14 people sanctioned, including herself. “They open an inexplicable file for me, except that I won the elections against the candidate proposed by Madrid, a situation that in the whole country only occurred in Asturias,” said Tomé, who insists that the only objective that is sought is “to end with the only critical sector that remains in the entire country with the current leadership of the purple formation and fully take control of the party in Asturias ”.

Tomé has added that the confinement “is a way of claiming the need to continue the dialogue until reaching an agreement that we owe to the militancy”, and has asked for official support for the candidacy approved in primaries.

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“I will leave here with democracy and the values ​​of Podemos intact; until then I stay at the Podemos headquarters, with the phone open 24 hours. I am a person who is not afraid to defend what he believes in and who fights until the end for it,” Tomé said in a statement. According to the head of the list, the management’s proposal is to remove Fernández and replace him in the candidacy with a person related to Palacios: the councilor in the Oviedo City Council Ana Taboada. Palacios did not want to make statements.

Tomé also assures that six people from her team, including herself, were filed by the leadership of Podemos for events prior to the regional primaries, “prescribed according to the internal regulations of the party”, and that, in the case of Fernández, He was sanctioned for opinions that he had expressed within the highest party leadership body.

From the Executive of Podemos in Asturias they reply that they are not trying to “remove anyone” from the list and explain that Jorge Fernández is subject to a “sanction of suspension of affiliation for serious and continuous verbal attacks for months against multiple party colleagues”, for what “automatically” is disabled to be part of the electoral list in accordance with the regulations of the party. The same sources deny that these facts are prescribed and describe the behavior of Tomé’s team as “worrying”, reports Paula Chouza.

Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos, has limited herself to saying this Friday: “What I want to ask of our candidate is that she present herself, that she campaign, that she has our full support, that of the organization in Asturias and at the state level, and that we all go out together to obtain the best possible results”.

Rafael Palacios’ team remains firm in its determination that Jorge Fernández leave the lists and they also reject that the next one on the list, Adriana del Oso, also from the critical sector, take his place, arguing that as a neighbor of Tineo he it corresponds to lead the candidacy of the West of the region. The next on the list would be Palacios himself, but he renounces the regional list, since he will be a candidate for Mayor of Langreo, a position incompatible with that of regional deputy. For Palacio, the exclusion of Fernández does not respond to a political decision of the party leadership, but to compliance with a resolution adopted by the State Guarantees Commission. “We are facing a terrible situation because this does very serious damage to the organization and to the possibility of a majority of the left and a progressive government in Asturias”, he added.

On the other hand, the four councilors in the Asturian City Council of Langreo critical of the current leadership of Podemos -Cristina García, Luis Baragaño, Elías López and Blanca Pantiga- have also announced their decision to resign in the next few hours.