The political cycle prior to the summer failed the two political hypotheses with which Podemos was working. In May, the attempt to save institutional representation through an alliance with IU in more territories than ever before did not work and, with few exceptions, the purples were left camped outside the walls of the regional parliaments and town halls, sleeping in the open. In July, the purple leadership's predictions also failed, predicting the end of the coalition government if Podemos did not occupy a central and leading role in the broad front led by Yolanda Díaz, a leading role that Sumar was never willing to cede to them. Spain broke the European cycle of right-wing triumph, and this disrupted the hypotheses with which Podemos was working, both in the political organization and in its media arm, Canal Red, whose centrality depended largely on becoming the fiercest battering ram against an executive from PP and Vox led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Podemos is sailing today in white waters without nautical charts, with the ship damaged and trying to rework its short-term strategy to continue existing in the medium.
Faced with this unexpected scenario, the general secretary, Ione Belarra, has set the objective of Pedro Sánchez's investiture that Irene Montero retain the ministerial portfolio of Equality, a possibility ruled out by the PSOE and communicated to the political space immediately after the elections. The socialists already offered then to look for an institutional alternative to Irene Montero, but Podemos flatly refused and continues to bet on the repetition of Montero at the head of a portfolio that not a few in the PSOE want to recover for the socialists, after the eventful end. of legislature, with an open confrontation between the Ministries of Justice and Equality regarding the reform of the so-called law of only yes is yes.
The moral authority resulting from the harassment suffered by Irene Montero during the last three years is the flag that Podemos waves to keep the bases and sympathizers firm in the midst of a constant trickle of departures from the party executive, the last, the one that was candidate for the presidency of the community of Madrid, Alejandra Jacinto, who this week announced her resignation from organic positions. Two weeks earlier, the general secretary in Asturias, former deputy Sofía Castañón, resigned, and five days ago the coordinator in the Balearic Islands, Antònia Jover, did the same, leaving the organization in the hands of a manager until the citizen assembly is held. The guidelines are clear, and the phrase “strengthening process” is repeated in all territories.
Belarra gathered its regional bases yesterday in Madrid to begin a process of collective reflection, explained its spokesperson, Isa Serra, which should lead to "strengthening", after the aggressive and forced ERE that the party had to face and which included the closure of most of the regional offices. “It is a process of strengthening, of organizational reflection, to take our project further, reinforce it and continue advancing social rights that are fundamental to making our country more democratic,” Serra explained at the beginning of the day. The day served to calm the waters, after Jacinto's departure and the tensions between the state leadership and the former mayoral candidate, Roberto Sotomayor. As an addendum to yesterday's meeting, today the party's number two, Irene Montero, travels to Extremadura, the only territory where the political space, Unidas por Extremadura, led by Podemos member Irene de Miguel, managed to improve its 2019 results .
The meeting of the state leadership with the different territories has been demanding for weeks by Covadonga Tomé, deputy in the General Board of the principality and the only autonomous elected official of Podemos in Asturias. Tomé's relations with the leadership of Podemos Asturias have been practically broken since he prevailed in the primaries against the candidate promoted by the leadership, Alba González, the party's organizational secretary. To redress this situation, the regional representative had demanded a meeting with the general secretary in an atmosphere so tense that, in the recent visits to Asturias by members of the state leadership, such as Belarra herself or Minister Montero, Tomé was not summoned to participate. of the acts.
Podemos is therefore focused on itself, on the reformulation of its project, but there are no critical currents structured to challenge the current leadership for control of the party. The majority of the dissidents have been leaving the formation of their own free will or have been removed from the command bridge over the last year. The only critic of the leadership who remains in the executive is the Secretary of State for Social Rights and leader of the coalition's negotiating team, Nacho Álvarez, who on Canal Red – which is directed by the former secretary general and de facto leader of the party, Pablo Iglesias, and from whose editorial board the co-founder Juan Carlos Monedero has left, was accused last week of conspiring with Díaz to occupy a ministry and thus remove Irene Montero from the executive.
These concerns keep the party and its five deputies almost disconnected from the rest of the organizations in the political space, to the point that yesterday they ignored the amnesty proposal of the jurists summoned by Sumar that Díaz has made known. It is, Serra said, a “proposal only from Yolanda Díaz, we did not know it, in fact we do not know it, and we continue to focus on proposals that allow our country to continue advancing in social and democratic rights.”
Podemos, whose operation has been divided into two executive branches – the official one and another informal one to which those suspected of dissidence are not summoned – has entered into a process of quartering itself to survive the winter and, according to various sources, evaluate the possibility in spring. to attend the 2024 European Championships alone. With Irene Montero at the head of the list.
