With the left divided, and in a context of a still complex legislature – despite the fact that the Budget negotiation is on track -, the leader of IU, Antonio Maíllo, has appealed this Saturday to “stop” the right and the extreme right building “an alternative country project.” After months of preparation, the party organized this morning at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid the first of the meetings of its Call for Democracy, a “broad process of listening and citizen and social participation” or “popular alliance”, as They themselves define it, which recalls in its first intentions the launch of Sumar in 2022. In the words of Maíllo, these debates now seek to serve as a “turning point in the state of mind of a left that may be in a state of of shock or cowed.”
The process will have at least two more meetings in Madrid, others will be held in the rest of Spain’s territories and will culminate next spring. Participating in the first tables this Saturday were, among others, the former Unidas Podemos deputy María Eugenia Rodríguez Palop and the housing expert and former UP candidate for the presidency of the Community of Madrid, Alejandra Jacinta, both later linked to the platform. of Yolanda Díaz, but who no longer occupy positions of responsibility or leadership in the party.
“We are going on the offensive,” proclaimed the IU federal coordinator before presenting the Manifesto for an economic and social democracy. Power of the People to Live Betterwhich brings together the main ideas of this call. The document advocates building a “broad popular alliance” that is “inclusive.” Faced with a panorama of fragmentation in the electoral space to the left of the PSOE (with separate candidacies of Sumar and Podemos), the text avoids referring to the parties and speaks only of uniting “the voices of feminism, environmentalism and each social movement.” .
The text invites us to leave “the trenches of resistance” and “leap towards proactive action, to build a collective country project” that makes it possible to “move from fear to hope, from individualism to the common good, and from inequality to social justice.”
“We have witnessed how our institutions have weakened, how there are political decisions that are far from our needs and how the rights achieved are threatened every day,” reads the text, which although it recognizes that the Call for Democracy is part of IU , seeks to go further and challenges all those who “feel the need to participate, to mobilize and to build a different future.”
“This is a call to move from passivity to action, from indifference to participation,” formulates the document, which calls for “returning the course towards a democratic deepening” that is based on six axes: a distribution of work, of time and care; universal and strong public services; the right to housing; strategic resources at the service of everyone and that do not remain in private hands; a State for dignity and equality; and “. “Immigration is a strength and makes us better as a country,” he defends on this last point.
Belarra avoids attacking Sánchez for Aldama
Almost at the same time that the Izquierda Unida event started, Podemos held the meeting of its State Citizen Council, the highest governing body. In her speech, the Secretary General, Ione Belarra, avoided attacking the President of the Government after the allegations about his alleged link with Pedro Sánchez, although she called corruption the Koldo case “very serious”. In her speech, Belarra assured that she was not going to “evaluate the statement of a now ex-convict criminal who has launched very serious accusations against active senior PSOE officials.” “We could obtain a very important electoral return as the PSOE did with us in their day.” [en referencia al caso Neurona] trying to take advantage of this statement in our favor, but we are not like them. In this case it is very important to distinguish the wheat from the chaff and the reality is that Aldama has made very serious accusations to many people without any proof,” he justified.
The deputy has insisted that Spain “needs to rebuild a strong alternative to the two-party system” and has taken pride in the agreement reached with the Government to create a tax on energy companies, despite the fact that there are still no guarantees that this will go ahead. Belarra has taken the opportunity to warn that the negotiation of the fiscal package “sets a precedent” for the Budget. “Let’s hope that the PSOE understands that Podemos’s conditions are what they are: lowering the price of rents and breaking commercial and diplomatic relations with Israel, agreeing to a formal arms embargo with them,” he assured. “We can have to continue demonstrating that votes from the left are worth the same as those from the right,” he recalled.
