Sumar’s leftists conspire to raise the spirits of the progressive electorate with a firm commitment to work for “unity”, incorporating many more forces into the new alliance for the next general elections, including Podemos. Izquierda Unida, Más Madrid, Comunes and Movimiento Sumar have shown their muscle this Saturday before more than 600 supporters at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where an additional room has been set up so that some of the attendees could follow the event.
The , a way to reset oneself before the citizens and go out to mobilize their own, comes after a key week for the redefinition of the political space, diminished by the division in recent years. The debate opened last Wednesday by the ERC leader Gabriel Rufián, who has proposed “resignations” and convergences between the state and nationalist left to avoid the division of the vote in the provinces, has agitated the organizations, which, not without nuances, have in some cases opened the door to exploring proposals.
The launch of the coalition is marked by the , who are betting on former minister Irene Montero as the head of the list, and the absence of Yolanda Díaz, whose work has been vindicated by the co-leader of Más Madrid and head of Health, Mónica García. The vice president, the only Sumar minister who has not attended this Saturday, still has not revealed her intentions for the next general elections and her decision determines everything. As soon as she finished the presentation, she published a brief message on social networks: “This is how we are going to win the next elections: by being excited, cooperating, moving forward. Always taking steps forward. Together. Hand in hand. We did it in ’23 and we will do it again. Pride as colleagues.”
“There is no one left over here. We need every voice, every progressive atom in all spaces,” García stressed in an event in which she was cheered by shouting “Mónica!” by the public. “Thanks to Gabriel and Emilio [Delgado] for the act of the other day,” he has expressly acknowledged in the face of the controversy over internal differences in the party. “Progressive citizens are waiting for us, they are waiting for our responsibility, generosity and a project that looks to the future.” “Let’s shake off the dark cloud, the pessimism. We are not a cup of Mister Wonderfulbut we are not going to make a big deal of the extreme right either,” he encouraged.
Along the same lines, the federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maíllo, has asked attendees to understand the “historical moment” and “manage reality without melancholy” to design “a correct response.” Maíllo has insisted that the challenge is not to generate fear of reactionary forces, such as Vox, but to “attack the causes of inequality” that push the dissatisfied to embrace the postulates of Santiago Abascal’s formation. The IU leader has proclaimed that the path opened today between the four parties is “irreversible” and that “more organizations” will join the project. “The new common sense that has been installed this week is in unity. Therefore, we will have to organize ourselves with political intelligence,” he defended.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, who represented the Commons this Saturday, one of the organizations that has been most critical of the idea of the ERC spokesperson, a direct electoral rival in Catalonia, has also spoken about the proposal outlined by Rufián on Wednesday. “This is not new. Last 23-J we won with a very meticulous, almost surgeon-like job of maximizing all the seats. This arithmetic is very necessary. But elections are not won only through electoral sociology, they are won with a winning political project.”
For the minister, there are three fundamental issues between now and the elections: governing the remainder of the legislature “well” for the majority, with the focus on housing and the social shield, for which he has warned the PSOE that one does not win “with the handbrake on”; the fight against the extreme right, and the construction of a project that connects with that social majority.
The coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, Lara Hernández, has left the door open to debate: “It is possible that we, the federal, confederal, and sovereign left, can understand each other. The historical time today is different and the challenge is new. It is a fight against the unfairness of our electoral system. We must and can look for formulas. Let’s be imaginative,” she defended. The leader has also advocated for a “more open left”, also for others “who are not present today” in the presentation of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, an indirect allusion to Podemos and other forces that are part of the parliamentary group, such as Chunta Aragonesista or Més.
“We are here to not repeat the mistakes of the past, 20 and five do not have to add up to 25, but fighting between cousins is not going to help us either. There are many people missing and we calmly say: welcome the debates, the ideas, all the voices, the leaderships, all the parties that want to unite to confront the extreme right,” said Más Madrid spokesperson in the capital, Rita Maestre, at the opening of the event.
The brand of the new project does not emerge from this Saturday’s presentation—a momentous election that does not seem imminent, nor does the leadership of the coalition or the methods for choosing the lists. Nor is it a minimum program, but the organizations insist that they have been working together since the summer and that what they need, for the moment, is to talk about politics. All the spokespersons have stressed these days, including Hernández today, that they have learned from the mistakes of the past. The big difference with previous processes is that now the parties and their militancy take precedence over a media leadership with no structure underneath. The context, they warn, is one that is more dangerous than that of 2023, with a more influential extreme right throughout the world, from the United States to Italy, but also in neighboring France or Portugal, where ultra forces enjoy a strong presence.
Among those attending were numerous organic and institutional officials of the parties. Also from ERC (Oriol López, deputy to the General Secretariat) and EH Bildu (Oihana Etxebarrieta and Floren Aoiz), as well as the Compromís deputy in Díaz’s parliamentary group in Congress, Alberto Ibáñez; the former federal coordinator of IU and former head of Consumption, Alberto Garzón; the former mayor of Barcelona Ada Colau; the leaders of CC OO and UGT, Unai Sordo and Pepe Álvarez; or the director of the Cervantes Institute, Luis García Montero. In the audience there were also former Podemos leaders, such as the former Secretary of State for Equality and former Director of Communication for Work with Díaz, Noelia Vera, and the party’s former spokesperson in the Senate and former coordinator in Madrid Ramón Espinar.
