The new Errejón in the old position

Ten years after the birth of Podemos, Íñigo Errejón returns to the front line of politics. Everything has changed in this time except his position: after this frenetic decade (“as if it had killed us,” he describes), the former university professor, political scientist and politician is, once again, parliamentary spokesperson for the space to the left of the PSOE: he already It was in 2015 and 2016, in that Podemos from the beginning, the one that jumped from victory to victory, from surprise to surprise and from mess to mess, and it is now, but with Sumar, forming a government coalition with Pedro Sánchez.

Sitting in a chair in his office, besieged by a thousand appointments and a boiling agenda, Errejón, 40, remembers that decade left behind that seems like a century to him and compares it with the apparently calmer days of now. First certainty: what we were looking for was not achieved, but that does not constitute a complete failure. “The great objectives that we set for ourselves (democratization of the State, the economy and society) were not achieved, but, if it had not been for the push of those years, the changes that have been carried out since the beginning would not have occurred. Government”. And he adds: “It is a constant in all egalitarian movements: they aim very high and achieve half, but that half changes people's lives.” He has also varied his perception of the validity of his own times: “This is a marathon, not the 100-meter dash; Not everything is for now, sometimes the conquest is slower; small changes lead to big ones. Anyway: I have learned that political battles are not always all or nothing.”

There is an old and iconic photo of Podemos from the beginning. It was taken in October 2014, at the first Assembly of the purple party, in the Vistalegre palace (Madrid). In it they appear, hugging, smiling, with their entire future ahead of them, the founders and first leaders of the new party: Carolina Bescansa, Luis Alegre, Juan Carlos Monedero, Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón. These last two embodied Podemos's essential line of fracture, there can only be one left, the crack through which the formation burst when Errejón left the party in January 2019 and founded Más Madrid. Of those five young people in the photo, the only one who is still in active politics is Errejón: Good luck? Chance? Instinct? “In politics there is an element of luck, and no one wants to say that because it seems that if you say it you strip yourself of the category of statesman,” he comments. “There is another part that has to do with passion, and I am passionate about my work. And with perseverance: I am not cynical, I am faithful to the ideas that I have always had, and I have defended them in different places.”

In a bar in Malasaña, with a coffee with milk, another of the members of that famous photo, Juan Carlos Monedero, 61 years old, also a university professor and political scientist, always on the side of Pablo Iglesias in his confrontation with Errejón, questions his words: “Errejón's electoral program is Íñigo Errejón. And his confrontation with Iglesias was about power. It was not an ideological disagreement. As a survivor, it reminds me of Fouche by Stefan Zweig. The quote contains poison. Joseph Fouché was a French politician who, during the French Revolution, joined, in that order, the moderates, the Girondins and the agents of terror and who, after surviving the Revolution, worked with Napoleon and even with King Louis XVIII. brother of the king whom Fouché himself helped to execute. Like no one else, he personifies the maneuvering politician capable of carving out a niche for himself in any ideology and any regime. Monedero adds: “Like Fouché, Errejón is intelligent, cowardly and opportunistic. He never appears alone at anything, he always goes with Iglesias, with Manuela Carmena or with Yolanda Díaz. And that opportunism allows you to survive, but no longer represent the new politics.”

Sergio Pascual, 47 years old, anthropologist, political scientist, founding member of Podemos, former Secretary of Organization of the party from 2014 to March 2016, in his time errejonistaauthor of the book A corpse in Congress, (Editorial Altamarea), tries to examine now, from a distance, away from any position and any affiliation, that fratricidal duel: “In classical terms, Pablo Iglesias was on the left because his objective was to alter the correlation of power forces in the country, because the rich accumulate much more power than their share. Errejón was always more gradualist, more of the type, let's move forward, convince people, and thus let's see how far we go.” That also responds to the different character of both: “Iglesias is bolder and Errejón more, if I may say so, amarrategui. Iglesias jumps into the pool without knowing if there is water and Errejón always looks first.” And the dichotomy and divergence crystallized in a specific historical moment: December 2015. Podemos obtains 69 deputies. An agreement with the PSOE and Ciudadanos would allow Sánchez to govern. The opposite will lead to new elections. “Iglesias,” Pascual recalls, “did not want to agree under any circumstances, with the idea that facilitating a PSOE Government with Ciudadanos was giving it to the right, to the second soul of the PSOE and that this went against our alternative nature; Errejón postulated that we do what the majority wanted, which was to throw out the PP. Both were partly right: people punished us in the following elections for not kicking out the PP, but at the same time, after 2015, we could not do something against our founding spirit and, furthermore, we could win, move to the PSOE, arrive at the Moncloa and things will change.” That did not happen in the June 2016 elections, and it was the beginning of the slope under Podemos.

Pascual sees differences between that Errejón spokesperson for Podemos and this one for Sumar: “Then he was the spokesperson for an ideological current with many followers and now he is an instrumental spokesperson, designated for his qualities, for being a genius with words, but not for his weight in the organization.” Monedero agrees: “He is where he started, but he does not have a social movement behind him. What applies here is that energy is neither created nor destroyed, it is only degraded. So it's in the same place, but degraded. Furthermore, a good part of his party did not want him to be spokesperson, being, as he is, the brightest of the group.

nostalgic tide

Errejón does not allow himself to be carried away by that nostalgic tide. It is true that society does not live the political impulse that aroused the 15-M from which Podemos was born: “The people do not have time to talk about politics all the time: that is what the rich from families do, those who dedicate themselves to politics. and those who think and reflect on politics. Only at certain times do people go out into the street and then everything shakes. But a good part of the desires and aspirations are still there. Now, society is more saddened and incredulous, with more anxiety, with more pessimi
sm about the future. “She doesn't want so many twists of the script that electrify her, but rather a little bit of tranquility and certainty, that security is not a privilege.”

In his work as new spokesperson, in 2024, ten years older than when he started, he aspires to close a certain gap: “The one that exists between the world of politics, here in Congress, and what your friends talk about.” in their conversations. They talk much more about lorazepan than about the General Council of the Judiciary, more about climate change or how tired we always are of working so many hours than about transactional amendments.”

Emilia Sánchez-Pantoja, 55, regional deputy for Más Madrid and former parliamentary coordinator with Errejón, assures that the current spokesperson for Sumar “has obviously lost the novelty of presenting himself as a stranger to society, but not the freshness to discover the issues that interest that same society.” And Lander Martínez, 35, Sumar's organizational secretary, believes that the combination of “calm, experience and the possibility of influencing the Government is a very powerful mix.”

And in a decade? What will Errejón do at 50 years old? “Buff, who knows? When I have been asked similar questions in the past, I have always failed to predict.”

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