The so-called alternative left aspires to unite for the first time in Aragon with a view to advancing the regional elections announced Monday by the popular Jorge Azcón, after the budgets were blocked. That of February 8 will thus become the second competition … election of the season after Extremadura and the ecosystem of parties that barely coexists to the left of the PSOE with a single “broad” candidacy intends to present itself. To this end, the Movimiento Sumar, Izquierda Unida (IU) and the Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) confirmed at the beginning of this week the start of contacts for a future negotiation which has not yet been closed.
The party led by Ione Belarra, Podemos, for its part, aspires to repeat Extremadura’s strategy on 8-F: attracting IU to its side and sidelining Sumar, who withdrew, renouncing to establish itself in a territory where it does not exist. Yolanda Díaz’s team doesn’t have a structure in Aragon either, but they aspire to have it and, this time, they don’t want to be cornered. That is why this Wednesday its general coordinator, Lara Hernández, went to Zaragoza to hold meetings with the management of CHA and IU Aragón.
Movimiento Sumar sources say they are working “with perseverance and discretion” to articulate this vast space. “Where we all are,” they emphasize. Their objective, they say, is “to accumulate enough forces to dislodge the Popular Party of the Government of Aragon” and it is for this reason, they explain, that since the electoral call, they have maintained contacts with the different forces with a view to articulating this candidacy. Other voices from the space of the second vice-president affirm in the same sense that Chunta is his favorite ally in Aragon. This is linked to the fact that its only national deputy, Jorge Pueyo, is currently part of the Sumar Plurinational Parliamentary Group in Congress.
CHA, for its part, frames this Wednesday’s meeting with Sumar within the framework of the periodic meetings that the two organizations maintain to discuss issues related to the daily functioning, precisely, of the parliamentary group. “We mainly discussed the meeting requested this Friday by the second vice-president (of the government), Yolanda Díaz, after the latest scandals that shook the PSOE,” explained the secretary general of the CHA, Isabel Lasobras, in statements to the media after the meeting.
Regarding possible electoral alliances, sources from the Aragonese party refer to the meeting that will be held this Sunday from 10:00 a.m. the National Committee of the party, its highest governing body between the assemblies, where the strategy to follow for the 8-F regional elections will be debated and voted on. This meeting will also give rise to the organization’s primary calendar, which will likely pit Rep. Pueyo against Lasobras.
At IU, its federal coordinator, Antonio Maíllo, also confirmed on Tuesday during a press conference the existence of “multilateral conversations” – also with Podemos – while affirming that the negotiation is taking place with “loyalty and transparency”. “When someone speaks in public, their objective is not to bring positions closer together, but to publicly establish a position,” responded this Wednesday Belarra, purple secretary general, who asked for “discretion”. “In Aragon we hope to train broad candidates, as we did in Extremadura,” he simply declared.
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