In 2018, during one of its, the then leader of Podemos in Andalusia, opted for a fruit metaphor to explain in Parliament a small group of journalists to what degree of autonomy aspired within his party. Although he would like Podemos out to be a cluster of grapes, he explained, he was satisfied with being an orange. What he did not accept is to be part of an apple.
The colorful explanation illustrates three options of any political entity when defining its organization and functioning, especially in terms of the relationship of the center, the state management, with the parties, whether they are their own territorial delegations or other parties. The grapes – following Rodríguez – would form a confederal group: they would all be part of the same, but so autonomous that they could be disconnected without affecting the whole. The orange corresponds to a federal structure: different wads but covered by the same skin. In the apple not only the skin is the same, but also the interior is homogeneous. That is, a centralist organization.
Seven years after describing Podemos as an apple, Rodríguez militates in a different party, Adelante Andalucía, disconnected from the purple, adding and any other state organization. It is neither apple bite, nor ga, nor grape, but another different piece of fruit. It is a story a thousand times seen in the, both when I led it we can and now to add and the purple: the territorial tensions, conflicts and crises are constant and it is not uncommon to reach the break. Compromís’s case is the last of a long series. The Valencian coalition, which was presented in 2023 to the generals with adding, lives an intense debate about their permanence in the parliamentary group resulting from the candidacy led by Yolanda Díaz. , but demands more autonomy.
If Rodríguez was unhappy with him We can applebecause it did not satisfy its federal aspirations, Compromís frustrated with the Add a cluster of grapesthat does not work – to his judgment – as a real confederal space. The differences between both cases are obvious. In Andalusia, part of the regional direction of Podemos changed the game; In Compromís, what is discussed is how to live with other formations. But both cases pay the same conclusion, says the political and writer analyst Manuel Martínez Barreiro: “The inability of the state alternative to build horizontal spaces that accommodate peripheral organizations”, a deficit that results in that both Podemos and Sumar Movement, Yolanda Díaz’s party within the Summar group, are “increasingly isolated” despite their vocation to serve as articulators of forces.
“A part of the Compromís crisis is symptomatic of the decomposition of adding, just like IU’s discontent. Simply, the 2023 coalition matches distance themselves from a decline mark. But there is another part that reveals something deeper,” explains Martínez Barreiro. That? A “strong contrast,” responds, between the emphasis that state organizations to the left of the PSOE put in defending the “plurality” of the State and its “extreme difficulty” to manage it.
The sociologist Luis Navarro, a professor at the Pablo de Olavide University, of Seville, who: “The classic speech of integrative identities stumbles with the real functioning of organizations, the fault is not exclusive or the center, of the parts or of the parties, but is a difficult balance, because an idea of heterogeneous Spain implies some challenges that for example the PP is saved with its uniformity”.
Fernando Flores, Professor of Law at the University of Valencia and a historical militant of progressive causes, observes the summar-compromise crisis and detects an old pattern: “If the peripheral forces do not see that they can benefit from the state of the state, they look away. They look at the tactical, not the strategic. And the state forces, before we can and now add, they take for granted that every Spain is soaked. Madrid.
Historical tensions
The organization that has historically maintained a more stable framework of central-periphery relations has been the PCE and, since its foundation in, United Left. His main focus of “tension” was the relations of the PCE, especially during the stage of, with him, dissolved in 1997, says Jaime Pastor, secretary of the Federal IU project in the mid -nineties, which resigned when the Federal Political Council rejected one by himself defending a “plurinational federal state” with “right of self -determination.”
“The dominant culture in IU has been and is federalism within the unity of Spain. But it is not a unanimous position, and sometimes generates friction,” adds Pastor. In IU, the main recent conflicts have occurred by what management has understood as maneuvers incompatible with its federalism. That is what he led in 2019 to the break with Esquerra Unida I alternative, after members of his address – lined by Juan Josep Nuet – promoted with ERC the project.
Shocks and conflicts
The life of Podemos, just over 11 years, is an encyclopedia of central-periphery conflicts. And that one of his first steps was a triumphal cooperation. In the 2015 municipal, the party supported a handful of candidacies such as, among others, that shook the local map. Those alliances showed a “briefly pluralistic,” says Martínez Barreiro, who lived closely. There the dwellings supported the tides in A Coruña, Santiago and Ferrol, who achieved the mayorships. In December, the candidacy in Marea, which linked Podemos, Esquerda Unida and Anova – a split of the BNG that was the most roots of the confluence – achieved six deputies in the generals. The following year ,.
Everything were unpublished successes, the result of the collaboration between a Podemos in its peak, united Esquerda and regional and local forces. But the golden stage lasted little. , after a long series of, changes of electoral brands and disasters. . How could it happen? “There was no real base, there was no proximity. Without roots, nothing lasts. An alliance can benefit promptly from the pull of a brand, but in the long run,” says Martínez Barreiro, who emphasizes that, that he stayed out of the coalitions of 2015 and 2016 but “opted for its social and territorial rooting.”
If Galicia provides a typical boom and fall case, the relationship between Podemos and Compromís is an example of instability. Although they achieved nine seats together in the generals of 2015 and 2016, their dealings have always been marked by crisis, ups and downs and mutual accusations. The electoral confrontation has been more usual than the unit. The experience of adding has already shown that it has not brought tranquility to the Madrid-Valencia axis.
“The tendency of Podemos has been to function as a centralized electoral war machine. For that, the distribution of power is left over. If there have been alliances, it was because there were figures impossible to ignore, such as Ada Colau and Xavier Domènech in Catalonia, or for punctual convenience in the Valencian country or Galicia. As for adding, it has not contributed nothing new to that vision,” says Jaime Pastor, who affirms that he affirms that he affirms that he affirms. Peripherals, like now Compromís, have in turn learned to gird their alliances to the periods of electoral bonanza, by never developing “deep links” or “non -hierarchical confederal spaces” to face crises with cooperation.
The problems in Podemos have also reached the relationship of the state management with the delegations. Especially following its drastic autonomous setback in 2019 ,. In Andalusia, the unit of Podemos, IU and Andalusian forces for the 2018 elections was undone as the regional direction of Podemos, with Rodríguez in front, opted for a new project, forward Andalusia. Now it remains to be seen if the atomization becomes even greater breaking the coalition of leftist and Andalusian forces.
The “plurinational” design
Add, the project promoted by Yolanda Díaz after the withdrawal of Pablo Iglesias, managed to agglutinate for the generals of 2023 to nine regional forces: more Madrid, Catalunya in Comú, Compromís, Chunta Aragonesista, Més (Baleares), Drago (Canary Islands), initiative of the Andalusian people, Batzar (Navarra) and Asturian left. Despite the emphasis on its “multinationality”, the group is far from having achieved harmony.
Before the Compromís crisis, which for now has avoided and raffles the rupture, Drago had already turned his back on the project between accusations of “authoritarianism and ninguito.” Like Drago, no initiative of the Andalusian people achieved a seat in 2023. But that does not justify, says José Antonio Jiménez, his spokesman, that “in adding we are not taken into account”, as he says he happens. Jiménez believes that his party was used to give a superficial Andalusian patina to the brand and then leave Andalusia “out of the idea of multinationality of adding”, causing an unfavorable “asymmetry” to its community, a criticism that is also heard in IU.
Given the criticisms in his space, Sumar Movement assures that he addresses his relations with “generosity and humility.” “We cannot preach the defense of plurality but then not normalize the existence of differences and the search for the best methods to solve them. We learn about the practice, aware that we have much to do,” says a member of the Executive in writing, which recognizes difficulties but makes a “enormously positive” balance of the “progressive” and “plurinational” alliance of the latest generals, essential to form “an exceptional coalition government in Europe”.
