The growth of the parties to the left of the PSPV was key in 2015 to promote political change in the Valencian Community. Separately, Compromís, Podem and EU (although the latter was left out of Les Corts) exceeded 846,000 votes, the record for this political space. Since then, the weakening of these forces has been gradual, to the point of being one of the determining causes, this 28-M, of the change of cycle and the rise of the Valencian right to power. In the last electoral appointment, the sum of the three parties remained at 434,667 votes, a loss of more than 410,000 ballots compared to 2015.
Despite this, these supports are appetizing numbers in a national contest because jointly transferring that support obtained on 28M to the polls in that hypothetical Sumar would lead them to achieve 7 of the 33 national deputies that are distributed in the Valencian Community.
This being the case, the agreement between the three parties is not being easy at all. On the contrary. As already happened during the campaign of the autonomic ones -especially by Podem who accused Baldoví of turning the coalition towards more conservative positions-, the criticism of the purple ones to Compromís does not stop. The former founder of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, who also participated in the regional campaign charging against Baldoví, has now not hesitated to accuse the Valencian brand of vetoing the purples in the negotiation process. Circumstance that Baldoví himself categorically denies.
But what is behind this growing animosity? At the beginning of the birth of Podem, Compromís and the purple ones collaborated in the Valencian Community. They presented themselves under the same ballot in the 2015 and 2016 general elections and became the second political force, surpassing even the PSPV. They moved between 659,000 and 785,000 votes. However, the intention of Compromís to create the first Valencian parliamentary group in history in Congress did not bear fruit and between accusations crossed, the relationship between both forces broke down. So much so that, in the following general elections (2019) Compromís -against the criteria of Mónica Oltra- opted for Más País, born from a split from Podemos.
Then began a battle for control of political space that is still present in the negotiation for the conformation of the Sumar ballot. And it is that the dual vote in the Valencian Community has greatly fueled that struggle between Compromís and Podem.
In the 2019 regional elections, already with the Unides Podem brand (Podem plus Esquerra Unida) in the political arena, Compromís achieved 443,000 votes, compared to 215,000 for UP. The Valencianistas won 67% of the votes that that space added up. However, in general, the proportion changed. UP grew and became strong and Compromís was relegated to approximately a third of the votes that the sum of all the political space to the left of the PSPV achieved. Those numbers are what Podemos looks at when it comes to articulating the Sumar agreement.
However, Compromís prefers to look at the results of 10 days ago now, when they achieved 80% of the votes of the space, 349,000 to the 85,5000 of their rivals. And in this, the negotiations are stranded.
Negotiations whose final result will define the balance of forces on the Valencian left, hence the insistence of some to impose their criteria and that of others to resist. If Compromís gets its way, Podem may be further dwarfed and. after having already lost their representation in the Valencian Parliament. being forced to hand over control of this political space to the Valencianists after years of tug of war.
And it is that, both at a local, regional and national level, there is talk of a political space that moves around that half million votes (also fluctuating depending on the strength of the PSOE) that is decisive electorally speaking.
