Sumar opens a new stage starting this Thursday. Just four days after the European elections, and in its first meeting since Yolanda Díaz announced that she was stepping aside and leaving the position of general coordinator, the party leadership has temporarily handed over the reins of the organization to four members who are already part of the hard core of the Executive. They will be the current head of Organization, Lara Hernández; Communication, Elizabeth Duval; the general secretary of the parliamentary group, Txema Guijarro; and the Secretary of State for Social Rights, Rosa Martínez.
The decision to have an “interim collegiate coordinator” in the coming months, foreseeably until a new assembly in the fall, as announced ElDiario.es and sources from Sumar have confirmed to EL PAÍS, it was raised during the meeting of the 80 members of the coordinating group, the highest decision-making body of the party, which was held in the afternoon behind closed doors and with the presence of Díaz. Upon arrival at the meeting, the spokesperson, Ernest Urtasun, defended that the objective is to “strengthen the organization” and “guarantee the stability” of the management bodies during the “reflection” process, while at the same time focusing on giving boost to the legislative agenda from the Government.
The names chosen were already in positions of maximum responsibility in the formation and in the Executive. Lara Hernández, who in practice was already number two with Urtasun, was appointed head of Organization last April. The former leader of Izquierda Unida with Cayo Lara was IU candidate for the European elections, federally responsible for convergence and in charge of negotiating the confluence processes with Podemos. Elizabeth Duval joined the project already in the general campaign and in recent months her figure has acquired greater weight within the organization. Both the incorporation of Rosa Martínez and that of Txema Guijarro allow direct links with the Government and with the group in Congress. Martínez was already in charge of Sumar’s Ecosocial Transformation, while Guijarro was in charge of Institutional Coordination.
With this step, the party faces a still uncertain stage. Díaz resigns as the organization’s top leader, but remains in the Executive and continues as an institutional and political reference for the leftist coalition, in which she still serves as vice president, interlocutor with Pedro Sánchez and president of the parliamentary group.
The movement, with which the head of Labor assumes in first person the poor results of last Sunday (three MEPs and 4.65% of support), allows her to focus on the Government’s action – fundamental for Sumar because Demonstrating its future usefulness largely depends on its ability to comply with the program—but also distancing itself from the internal mess and disputes with the parties. After the debacle in the Galician elections, and the poor numbers of Basques and Europeans, criticism from groups such as Más Madrid and Izquierda Unida for Sumar’s drift has intensified.
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The rest of the actors now want to open a stage of greater horizontality between organizations and in which Díaz’s party is one more. All parties have opened themselves to calling a coalition table in which the political forces can sit down to renegotiate the terms of the agreement between them. Until now the talks had only taken place bilaterally.
The draft presented to the executive defends the political capital of Yolanda Díaz and stipulates that the parliamentary group has to be more belligerent. Among the agreements, in addition to the collegiate coordinator, it is established that Díaz will be the one who coordinates the government action with the PSOE within the coalition Executive and a working group of the forces that make up Sumar is created to prepare a proposal for the negotiation of the 2025 Budgets.
Sumar has several challenges ahead: from reconnecting with a disappointed electorate, which has almost 70% turned its back on him since the July 2023 general elections; to working on its territorial implementation, a complex task when the organization currently does not have clear leadership and Sumar is one of the smallest parties in the space, which also has the support of other formations that do have important roots in certain communities.
The future relationship with Podemos also remains to be resolved, an issue that neither of them want to talk about now because the wounds are very fresh, the candidacy led by Irene Montero has just won two seats in Brussels (only one less than Sumar) and neither There are elections in sight.
The doubts that arise are many. For now, the vice president has neither confirmed nor denied that she is interested in being a candidate again. —interviewed on TVE this Thursday He limited himself to saying that she has not expressed her desire to be one again—and the project without her figure is, to say the least, lame.
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