“I am going to take a step forward: I want to be the first president of my country, the first president of Spain,” announced Vice President Yolanda Díaz. Minutes before she had given clues about the tone of a feminist and emancipated candidacy for tutors: “We belong to nobody. Women belong to nobody. And I, as a woman, am not anyone's either. We have to proclaim it because it seems that even today we must carry a 'de' attached to our name that marks our adhesions and our debts. and no, we are tired of guardianships, of being ignored”.
Díaz was speaking in front of more than half a thousand people in a packed Magariños sports center, which several thousand people (around 3,000) could not access, who lined up all morning, some from early morning, for the coming-out of Add. The organization set up a playground at the Ramiro de Maeztu school next to Magariños, where a part of the capacity that could not access the interior of the sports center followed the act on screens.
Díaz appeared surrounded by the entire confederal space of Unidas Podemos with the sole exception of the state executive of Podemos -several deputies from the parliamentary group as well as many candidates from the purple party for the municipal and regional elections did approach the sports center, alma mater of the Students– and other formations that in 2015 participated in the same political space, such as Compromís and Más País, as well as personalities from culture, trade unionism and members of civil society, who have been participating in the preparation of the document called the project of country and in the acts of listening that the vice president has carried out throughout the country in the last year.
In her words, Díaz did not expressly allude to the absence of Podemos, although she reiterated that "Sumar is an open house to all those who want to transform our country and I am convinced that we are going to continue adding". And he added that "we are not here to confront each other or to occupy an electoral space, but to win a country", at a time when "democracy is at risk, in the face of hate parties around the world."
In the event, led by the content creator Jen Herranz, Díaz was preceded by the young Helio Roque, also a digital creator of only 21 years of age, Maite Navarro, a representative of small businesses, Teresa Fuentes, a trade unionist, and the Nicaraguan poet, Gioconda Belli, Sandinista fighter retaliated by the government of Daniel Ortega, and the historic LGTBI activist, Carla Antonelli, former deputy of the PSOE in the Madrid Assembly, the first trans deputy in Spanish politics. Antonelli drew the greatest applause by proclaiming that "it's time for Spain to have a female president, and it's going to be you, it's going to be you, Yolanda."
In the act of Sumar, Díaz also received the support of numerous personalities from the European and Latin American left, in addition to those who accompanied her in the front row, such as the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, the coordinator of IU, Alberto Garzón, the leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejón, the candidate for Más Madrid, Mónica García, and the mayor of Valencia, Joan Ribó.
Despite the boycott of the executive of Podemos, the act of Sumar was attended by the regional leaders of Galicia (Borja San Ramón) and Navarra (Begoña Alfaro), as well as several national and regional deputies such as Antón Gómez-Reino, Txema Guijarro, Nacho Escartín and Daniel Ripa, among others.
Besides, other Podemos cadres have not attended but have given support to Díaz during these days, such as the Balearic vice president Juan Pedro Yllanes, the deputy Gloria Elizo, the Podemos candidate for the autonomous elections in Asturias, Covadonga Tomé. This morning the regional coordinator of the formation Irene de Miguel joined, who on social networks said that "today everything begins for Sumar" and that although "today could not have been", she is "sure that there will be other stations to be able to meet and continue together to transform this country with courage”.
In his speech, Díaz had words of thanks, one by one, for Ada Colau, Joan Ribó, Alberto Garzón, Enrique Santiago, Mónica García, Íñigo Errejón, Juantxo López Uralde, as well as the unity candidacies that are running for the elections autonomous communities, while repeating the mantra of his speech: "Everything starts today".
"The Spain of women is unstoppable and is called Sumar".
