The Movimiento Sumar and Izquierda Unida were summed up this month in the critical discourse with the PSOE that allowed Podemos to win this legislature. For several weeks, the government has been facing an unprecedented internal crisis due to cases of corruption and accidents affecting the socialists and the collapse of Pedro Sánchez’s party this Sunday in Extremadura. It is now more urgent that it is up to Sumar to push these changes forward. The president, during his appearance at the first hour, announced the succession of Pilar Alegría before the Ministry of Education, Professional Training and Sports (the replacement of Milagros Tolón) and the appointment of the new spokesperson (Elma Saiz), but he did not allude to the hundimiento in Extremadura and did not propose other remodelings, as demanded by his partner.
All the leaders left this very difficult period facing Sánchez, accentuating the crisis in the Executive. “After some events in which the PSOE lost 15% of the votes and obtained the worst historical result in the region, (the president) decides to act as if it were the past, with a routine political response. Elma Saiz is appointed spokesperson. It is not a decision of political reading of the moment, it has been a huida since then. Tiene seems to be a denial of reality”, questioned the general coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, Lara Hernández, in the press. In the opinion of the head of the party that created Yolanda Díaz in 2023, the PSOE remains “settled in paralysis, immobility and self-satisfaction”, “ingredients which led to the electoral debacle in Extremadura”. “Loyalty to the Government is not loyalty to the PSOE and its internal balances, but those who voted for us expect political action, social rights and real changes. Governing means intervening, protecting and transforming. It’s too much lameness,” he said.
Faced with this socialist catastrophe and in the midst of a crisis among socios, the federal coordinator of the IU, Antonio Maíllo, sent several messages to the PSOE: “This is not the time for the resistance manual, but for the action manual. We must launch a bold proposal for housing policy,” he lamented in reference to the extension of more than 600,000 rental contracts which expire in the coming months. The Executive publicly announced this morning an agreement with EH Bildu to extend the social shield, a complaint from the minority shareholder in recent weeks.
In his intervention, Maíllo returned to warn President Pedro Sánchez that “inmovilism is not an option in the face of reactionary advances.” The political parties present in the government were very unhappy last month after meeting with the head of the PSOE organization, Rebeca Torró, due to the lack of response from the party.
In a speech without any trace of self-satisfaction, Podemos number three, Pablo Fernández, also attacked the socialists, declared the executive “dead” and blamed its inaction for the growth of the PP and Vox. “This government is a factory of ultra-derechists,” he declared.
“Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE do not understand anything. Today’s appearance of Sánchez is infamous, regrettable and demonstrates that the PSOE will do absolutely nothing, that it throws the country into the arms of the extreme right. That today there is no minimal analysis of the terrible battle of the PSOE and the abstention in Extremadura. I declare that the PSOE is dead and incapable of stopping the extreme right”, he declared.
The historic result of Unidas por Extremadura in Sunday’s elections – which reached seven representatives, collected more than 17,000 votes and reversed the decline of recent years against the backdrop of the defeat of the PSOE – did not serve to ease tensions between the organizations and even less to decide on a truce between them. The positions will be firm this morning during the appearances of their national leaders. Maíllo celebrated the success of the candidacy led by Irene de Miguel (his party obtained the majority of the group, four representatives) and affirmed that this is the way to follow in the comics that will take place in February in Aragon and later in Castile and León and Andalusia, where his formation, he assures, has the “responsibility” of “vertebrating” these broad alliances. Meanwhile, from Podemos, Fernández returned to warn that Sunday’s success has to do with the existence of a left “rooted in the territory and that counts with real political parties, which are not lacking in the PSOE”, a direct reference to Movimiento Sumar, Díaz’s party, which does not participate in these rallies but is not constituted in Extremadura. Fernández “defended” all of De Miguel’s statements, including his position on the second vice president of the government, described a few days ago as “fraud on the government.” During the campaign, the head of the list was not the subject of criticism of the Gallegian leader, which was supported that day by the fears of the national leadership of Podemos. “These discussions are not important,” responded Lara Hernández about the controversy, who reiterated her call for the construction of expanded alliances in the rest of the territories and withdrew the data from the Ministry of Labor in the community.
In a press release from Seville, the leader of the IU sent a message to the rest of the parties in the political space. “The path that has been traced in this proposal linked to the territory, very close to the people and internally coherent, is a line that gives hope to the rest of the country. In each territorial reality, conforming the articulations of the really existing forces is the way to create a political project of hope”, he said justifying the absence of the Summary Movement. Maíllo referred to this “unitary” vocation for the convocations that have taken place since then, notably throughout Aragon, whose negotiations are due to end the next day and where he has not wanted to give up anything for the moment.
Asked about future negotiations that include Díaz’s party in Aragon, Fernández once again rejected the organization’s role. “What has been essential in Extremadura is that the candidacy led by Irene de Miguel is a candidacy that has worked for many years, that has activism attached to the territory and that relies on political parties that are truly rooted and with visibility in the territory, which cross villages and groups of elderly people from many years ago that they represent. Nothing is missing from the PSOE,” he said.
All election results in Extremadura
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