Prohibit the purchase of public services by vulture funds, protect and develop empty Spain or expand the confederal space of United We Can (UP). The document that collects the conclusions of the party’s forum for reflection, held last week in Rivas-Vaciamadrid, sets out the objectives of the leftist formation between now and 2030 and gives the militancy a “central role” in the next electoral cycle. of asking him to “not waste time” on “absurd” internal conflicts.
The text, to which EL PAÍS has had access, sets out in 34 pages a “country horizon” for this decade, yes, as long as Podemos becomes the majority force of the Government. A goal that revives the idea of overtaking the PSOE exploited in 2016, but which, according to the polls (11.8% of voting intention, according to the CIS) and in the absence of confirming whether Vice President Yolanda Díaz will be head of the list of UP, it seems unlikely. The manifesto, titled Compass to win this decade, refers to Spain as “country of countries” and describes some of the proposals outlined in the University of Autumn of the party.
The document refers to the consolidation of “universal and quality” public services. Podemos proposes that “any sale” of public services or increased participation in them to foreign vulture funds, companies controlled by these and large multinationals should be prohibited until reaching, at the end of the decade, “zero participation”. In line with what was expressed last Sunday by the Secretary General, Ione Belarra, the manifesto is committed to having public companies in the main strategic sectors: energy, banking, pharmaceutical and telecommunications, with a market penetration of “at least 15%”.
At a time when the debate raged, agitated by the PSOE, on the decentralization of institutions, the manifesto incorporates winks to empty Spain and alludes to “territorial justice” to put the ” protection, recovery and development ”of the most depopulated areas. The reference is not trivial. The associations representing the so-called Empty Spain announced in September that they would launch a “political tool” with which to stand in the next elections. Its irruption can significantly alter the political scene in Castilla y León, Extremadura or Aragón, where the Teruel Existe platform already obtained a deputy in 2019. We can believe that it is “fundamental” to guarantee the coverage of public services or promote private activity through aid and incentives for companies that want to establish themselves in these areas.
“Shielding a new generation of feminist rights”, such as deciding on one’s own body – at a time when the right has rekindled the debate on abortion and the Ministry of Equality is preparing a reform of the law – as well as achieving that “it is not a problem” to indicate in the DNI a “third gender” are other goals set out in the document.
In terms of taxation, Podemos seeks to increase public revenues by raising taxes on large incomes, fortunes and large corporations, intensifying the fight against tax fraud and providing more troops to the Tax Agency. The party proposes to establish, among others, a “wealth tax” that cannot be eliminated by certain autonomous communities as an “internal tax haven”, an allusion to Madrid, where the wealth tax has a 100% bonus . He also defends a bank tax to “recover the entire bailout before 2030” and another on income that includes higher rates for the highest salaries.
Voting at 16
In its manifesto, Podemos considers that this has to be the decade of the young. The document highlights the proposal to “lower” the minimum age required in the right to vote to 16 years. “Our political space considers young people subjects of rights and decision-makers of their own social and vital future”, justifies a formation that in the 2019 generals was positioned as the favorite party of young people and that already included this measure in its program electoral.
The repeal of the Citizen Security Law, known as the gag law, approved by the Popular Party, or that of foreigners, in order to be replaced by a norm “respectful of human rights and without traces of institutional racism”, as well like the current law on official secrets, are other issues outlined in the document. The reform of the former to eliminate some of the most controversial points, such as the hot return of migrants or the sanctions for holding spontaneous and peaceful demonstrations, has been bogged down in Congress for months, with differing positions, in the specific case of returns, between the two Government partners.
Podemos declares itself “aware” of being part of a “progressive and plurinational” bloc “of State leadership” in which are the “Catalan and Basque” political forces, as well as the PSOE, which it mentions in second place. The “care of these alliances”, considers the party, is “a central political task” to accumulate the democratic advances and that “dangerous reactionary involutions do not appear in the way of a government of the extreme right PP-Vox”, points out the text. In tune with the “country project” outlined by Yolanda Díaz for the upcoming general elections, the formation recognizes that it must work “to expand” its own political space to “new social sectors, referents of civil society and other forces.”
A single mention of Pablo Iglesias
The manifesto only mentions the former vice president of the Government Pablo Iglesias once, and he does so solely by his first name. The reference is included in the paragraph that gives a “central role” to the “militant tasks” in the territorial strengthening of the organization, asking to avoid internal fights. “A grassroots militancy that flees from the bureaucratic and procedural, that does not waste time with absurd internal conflicts, that puts care at the center, that knows how to give way to other colleagues generously when the time comes, as Pablo did, and that is much more based on doing than on saying ”, reads the text.
We can believe that throughout the decade Spain will be approaching an “irrevocable and irredeemable republic of solidarity and plurinational” that will come through a “new Constitution of the XXI century”. The document is also critical of the current situation of the Crown. “Because the corruption of the monarchy is a gangrene that no democratic system can withstand, as it cannot be admitted in the XXI century that the head of State is not elected by suffrage but by fertilization, because monarchical centralism is one of the main focuses of territorial conflicts and a solidary and plurinational republic its solution ”, he states. Sources from United Podemos reiterated this week that they only conceived that the emeritus king would return to Spain to “be tried and be held accountable” in a Congressional Investigation Commission. “Anything other than that would do irreparable damage to democracy,” they said.