IU Madrid spokeswoman and former Parla City Council councillor, Carolina Cordero, has won the IU Madrid leadership primary. The nomination, which had the support of the outgoing leadership, beat that of Yolanda Hidalgo, an alternative proposal supported by names from the party such as the former Mayor of Rivas Pedro del Cura, the former Deputy Mayor of Madrid Mauricio Valiente, the former Economic Advisor of Madrid Carlos Sánchez Matto, the Mayor of Rivas Aida Castillejo, or the former MEP Willy Mayer, who closes the list. The results will be ratified at the second regional assembly, which will be held on November 15-16.
Carolina Cordero presented herself with the idea of forming a single list – and this was not the case – at a time she considered “crucial for the left.” He highlighted his candidacy in a tweet on Twitter: “We said this during the election campaign: the result would have been like this and there was no need for a confrontation meeting.”
“It is time to restore the presence of Izquierda Unida in our region,” stressed Cordero, who stressed in a statement compiled by Europa Press that he would work “with the continuity of the project he started and with the previous leadership.” Cordero seeks to reach an agreement among the majority of the organization for a coherent and solvent leftist option through which the formation regains its “historical weight” in the Community of Madrid and its municipalities, and thus is able to stand up to “the rise of the extreme right and the neoliberal drift of the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso.”
Álvaro Aguilera, the current regional coordinator of the University of Madrid who announced at the beginning of this term that he would be the last, publicly supported Cordero to be the future regional coordinator. He defended this by saying: “Given the weakness of the Madrid left’s position and the reactionary rise, it is necessary to struggle with the candidacy of a solid and real unity. There may be political differences, but going to a new internal battle is an irresponsibility that the working class in our region does not deserve.”
Cordero’s nomination emphasized that discussions about rapprochement and the role of the international federation in Unidas Podemos’ operations first, and later in Somar, “were overcome by the facts.” “It has been proven that tribal operations from the top have successively failed, and there is a consensus on the need to respect the autonomy in the political positions of each client and show the organization that has the greatest territorial implantation, the Izquierda Unida,” he said.
On the other hand, he adds, the entire University of Madrid is “cohesive” around “the policy of coalitions agreed this spring at the federal level” and “the need to strengthen the unionist candidacies of the left in the upcoming municipal and regional elections.”
Yolanda Hidalgo led the alternative nomination
For her part, Yolanda Hidalgo was supported by “a large sector of the Madrid Federation, in which some of its most famous figures are present.” The candidate herself said in a video clip broadcast on social media: “Thank you for your support, which rose to 40%. The political debate was a collective victory.”
The alternative candidacy was led by Hidalgo, a working-class teleoperator, “completely from the South”, at the head of an equal team, with a regional balance and the presence of “historically unrepresented sectors such as immigrants or people with disabilities”. The nomination was made up of fighters from PCE, Frente Amplio, Izquierda Republica and Debate y Programa. The alternative project was supported by representatives of municipalities in the International Federation, especially in Rivas and Alcorcón, and with activists from popular assemblies in the city of Madrid and the towns of the community.
The alternative political document proposes an alternative to “Madrid as a laboratory for neoliberalism”, is self-critical and points out that the University of Madrid has not been able to become the political instrument capable of changing the Madrid governing body. To this they add criticism of “the lack of independence, the abandonment of links with social movements, and the lack of opposition to the right,” although they discover “solid rules for a new phase.” Through the nomination, they emphasized that “without Izquierda Unida, the Community of Madrid will not change. We are an instrument of change.”
About The Author
