Nothing has changed on the Spanish left after the brakes on the far right in the French legislative elections. Despite celebrating the victory of the New Popular Front on Monday, the leaders of Podemos and Sumar are for now resisting reopening the debate on the unity of the space at the national level. After an exhausting electoral cycle, with six elections in 14 months, the two formations rule out talking about alliances. While the party created by Yolanda Díaz is proud of what has already been achieved in Spain and argues that “what is needed” at this time is to “defend” its policies “within the framework of the coalition government”, those of Ione Belarra, who began an independent path after the split in Congress last December, assure that their strategy remains the same. In a publicly different position, the federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maíllo, does defend not “excluding” anyone from a possible joint candidacy on the left of the PSOE to “continue consolidating a progressive Europe”.
“Welcome the French to be another exception like the Government of Spain. We already did this on June 23,” said Vice President Díaz from El Escorial, where she was participating in the summer courses organized by Sumar. “We have already achieved unity and the model of the [Nuevo] “The Popular Front is a reference in the active policy of the progressive coalition government,” the party’s head of Communications, Elizabeth Duval, reiterated in a press conference, referring to the results obtained in the general elections, when Podemos ran with the rest of the left-wing forces and the sum of the PSOE and the majority parties of the investiture prevented PP and Vox from governing. In the same appearance, the Secretary of Organization, Lara Hernández, wanted to shift the responsibility to those of Belarra. “The Podemos colleagues have decided to have a debate that we can only respect in terms of rhythms and times,” she stated briefly.
Asked about an electoral alliance with the Socialists, Duval stressed that the context in France is “very different” from the local one. “We already have a clear model of unity, of coalition. It is not a question of remaining in the future or considering hypotheses, because we have already achieved that progressive victory in Spain,” she explained.
In its Monday press conference, Podemos also welcomed the results in France, highlighting the importance of carrying out policies of “transformation and not centrism”. “Fascism is stopped from the left”, said co-spokesperson Javier Sánchez Serna before emphasising that it is “fundamental” that the result of the polls be respected and that there be a government in which La France Insoumise (led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon) can deploy its programme “without Macronist intrusions”, in reference to the French president. Since its divorce from Sumar, Podemos has been repeating for months that they “have turned the page”, a line from which they have not deviated even after the data from France were known. Voices from the party leadership add that the result in the neighbouring country does not alter their plans, although they once again express their discontent with Díaz’s coalition by adding that some lessons can be drawn from that experience, such as that construction processes “with vetoes and exclusions” cannot take place. They claim that now the fundamental thing is that each organization strengthens itself by consolidating its “implementation” and makes its own “diagnosis”, so de factowith no elections in sight, They refuse, for the moment, to explore this joint path.
Faithful to the tradition of his party, trying to build bridges between organizations, the leader of IU, Antonio Maíllo, does advocate working on processes of convergence. “There is a lesson that we already learned on June 23: unity has to be an instrument to continue consolidating a progressive Europe,” he argued early Monday before betting on a “social mobilization” that promotes “political-electoral formulas in which no one should be excluded.” Maíllo also does not see a scenario possible in which there is a candidacy that unites the communism of IU with the social democracy of the PSOE. “Between 15-20% [del electorado] “responds to the political space that we represent. And that percentage, as long as we make a bold electoral offer in political terms, will not go to the PSOE,” he ruled out.
There are voices from IU, however, who believe that the victory of the popular front in some way undermines Podemos’s thesis on the success of solo candidates and are betting that in the medium term the left-wing parties can come to an understanding again.
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Iglesias rules out a scenario like that of France
In response to questions from EL PAÍS, the former secretary general of Podemos and former vice president of the Government, Pablo Iglesias, ruled out a scenario like the French one in Spain, with a popular front where the PSOE “was not the majority force”. “I think that the PSOE and its affiliated media [Iglesias subraya en sus declaraciones que medios y periodistas son “actores políticos”]they would love to promote an electoral space dominated by the PSOE, which would be PSOE-progressive, which would stand for election,” he argues. “Pedro Sánchez could convince Sumar, which is in an extremely fragile situation, that this could give them a narrative, to move from the narrative of collapse to the narrative that we have been able to put together a popular front with the PSOE,” he adds. “An experience like the French one is very complicated here and at the same time, it has to be based on the recognition of the weight of each party. In Spain, the Sumar process [en las generales] “It was based on not recognising what Podemos represented: a strategy of vetoes, absence of primaries, absence of democratic mechanisms or a minimum of internal institutionality,” he explains. He also doubts that the programme around which the New Popular Front was formed by the Socialists would want to apply in Spain. “After having shared the members of the General Council of the Judiciary with the PP, the PSOE’s bet goes down a different path,” he stresses.
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