The threshold of 5% of the votes that will determine the survival of Podemos in Madrid is no longer the monotheme in the campaign of Alejandra Jacinto (Madrid, 1989). His attempt, rejected, to give Isabel Díaz Ayuso the book by the former Minister of Social Policies that addresses the transfer of thousands of elderly people to hospitals, his blouse with the face of the president's brother stamped on it, and his viral campaigns on the networks have served to present it to the general public. "There will not be time for any survey to reflect it, but the campaign, and especially last week, are going well. It has already been established that we are the decisive vote for both the City Council and the Community," she predicts smiling, knowing that the The presence of Podemos in the regional Chamber could prevent Ayuso from achieving the absolute majority he craves.
It is Monday, May 2. And Jacinto doubts whether to order a coffee or a soft drink. It's barely 11:55 a.m. and the purple candidate for the presidency of the Community has already been three. "I'm starting to feel tired and it's hard for me to get up. But as soon as I set foot on the street I start to get active and I no longer remember the hours of sleep I lack," he points out on the way to a terrace near Madrid Río where He has just denounced Ayuso's "indiscriminate felling of trees" to the affected residents to build a Metro stop.
Jacinto entered politics in 2021. Hand in hand with Pablo Iglesias who decided to lead the Podemos lists to try to stop the advance of Isabel Díaz Ayuso in Madrid. The subsequent abandonment of the policy of whoever was vice president of the Government raised her to the co-spokesperson of her parliamentary group. And she, since then, has been the first to take the pulse of the regional president as she is in charge of opening the plenary sessions every Thursday in the regional Chamber.
"I have focused on trying to make her talk about Madrid, but she does not want to. She is already seeing herself in the campaign. Although she is equally surprised because the problem of health and housing also affects her electorate. And she has not provided not a single solution", he adds.
Jacinto is a lawyer. She began her political activism 12 years ago as a defender of the right to housing and ended up leading the legal battles of the Platform for Affected by Mortgages against the sale of public housing that the PP in Madrid sealed with vulture funds in the time of Ana Bottle as mayoress of the capital. But it was her run-in with Ayuso during the electoral debate that triggered her image. "This has skyrocketed," she admits after greeting and taking a couple of photos with several people who have stopped her during her tour of Madrid Río.
The unity candidate between Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Alianza Verde to 28-M explains why she did it. "The people of Madrid should know what Ayuso is really like. The cruel and ruthless Ayuso of the plenary sessions of the Assembly. And since he has not wanted to participate in more than a single debate, we wanted to put him in front of his mirror. So that viewers could see how he forgot about our elders by signing the protocols of shame with which his Government gave the order not to transfer 7,291 elderly people from residences to hospitals".
The lawyer knew that her moment was coming. "The Idealista campaign is not a chance occurrence, we had it prepared a long time ago and we have simply waited for the right moment. Because we must stop with the fact that housing policy in Madrid is dictated by a real estate portal. It is that what "We say is not a flashy slogan, but an empty one. On the contrary, it connects with the real perception of the housing problem due to PP policies that are governed solely by speculation". "And why not?" she adds. "We have the right to think from idealism that things can be changed and can be better."
"It's because the right to housing is my life. It's been many years of work so that they don't take away the fundamental rights that belong to us," he assures while looking back to the times when he joined the cause during the 15th -M. A legacy that she is thinking of branding herself on her body. I don't have any tattoos, because I'm a bit scared, but lately I've been thinking about getting one. A small house".
Jacinto guarantees his predisposition to join any progressive pact that allows the eviction of Ayuso from the Community. He has even worked intensely for a unitary candidacy that, although it has not arrived for 28-M, it seems that it could crystallize around Yolanda Díaz for the general elections at the end of the year. Although he prefers to park the subject.
"There is still a long way to go and it would be a mistake to get entangled with that in the middle of the campaign," alleges the lawyer who in her day seriously considered whether it was worth it to park the cooperative in which she worked to embark on a mess such as this of politics. But now it is clear. "Now we have to change things to deactivate the patronage network that the PP has turned Madrid into."
