The left shelve an agreement to attend together in Aragon. After days of talks on various sides, there will finally be three ballots on the left of the PSOE. Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) was the first to mark the distance this Friday at noon by announcing that its deputy in Congress, Jorge Pueyo – part of the Sumar parliamentary group – would be the head of the list for Zaragoza, while the negotiations between Podemos and Izquierda Unida have continued throughout the day, speeding up the deadline for the registration of coalitions, which expires at midnight. The agreement between both formations has not finally been possible in a territory (the only one next to Asturias) where the organizations have never agreed to go together to the regional elections. Since 2023, both parties have one representative in the Cortes, compared to CHA’s three. This time, Movimiento Sumar (MS) was also in the equation, the party coordinated by Lara Hernández, about which Ione Belarra’s party does not want to know anything, and which barely has a presence in the territory. The formation has agreed to go on the list with IU.
“We are convinced that unity is the best tool to guarantee policies that put people at the center and for that we have worked intensely these weeks,” said Marta Abengochea, general coordinator of Izquierda Unida Aragón in a statement. “The objective is clear: to open a new political stage in the community and offer a real alternative for change in the face of the exhaustion of the current model,” MS explained. The program and the list will be presented to you in the coming days.
On Friday at noon, CHA confirmed that it will finally not be necessary to hold primaries to elect its candidates, as each one has opted “for different positions,” as its general secretary, Isabel Lasobras Pina, justified in a press conference. Pueyo will be ratified in an extraordinary party committee scheduled for January 3.
Lasobras already distanced the possibilities in agreement with the rest of the parties. “If the unity of the left is requested, it is requested with all the conditions, not with bilateral meetings,” he said in an appearance in which he also pointed out that the interest of his party was that the negotiations “be carried out in Aragon, far from the noise and the game of thrones that exists in Madrid.”
Meanwhile, the federal leader of IU Amanda Meyer alleged interference from the Podemos leadership in the negotiations with her party in Aragon. “If IU and Podemos understand each other in Aragon, they meet, negotiate and agree to attend together on 8F, with a left-wing government program that confronts the PP and Vox in Aragon, it is respected. The alternative is built from the territory, Madrid’s vetoes are irresponsible,” he noted in his message. Party sources say that one of the obstacles was that the core of Belarra did not accept that IU led the coalition.
Podemos, however, has blamed the rest of the parties in a statement issued late in the day for not having accepted its unity proposal, something that the party claims to “regret.” “We Podemos Aragón proposed to other actors on the left to form a candidacy that followed the model of Unidas por Extremadura, which last Sunday won seven seats and exceeded 10% of the votes,” he points out.
María Goicoechea, who obtained the support of 88% of the militancy in the primaries, will be the candidate of the organization, which aims to “put the left on its feet to advance rights and confront the right and the extreme right.”
Pueyo’s departure from Congress will alter the balance in Sumar’s parliamentary group. The second place on the list for Zaragoza belongs to the party created by Yolanda Díaz in 2023, which would reinforce its strength in the group with 11 deputies out of 27.
