Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) has become this Sunday the only party on the left that makes the PSOE crisis profitable. The candidacy led by Jorge Pueyo, until a few days ago Sumar’s deputy in Congress, doubles its seats (up to six) and achieves its second best result in 40 years of life. The left will be irrelevant in the Cortes next term, without the ability to condition anything, but the disappearance of Podemos further weakens the party in its race to the general elections, already complicated in itself. The elections show that IU’s alliance with Movimiento Sumar, the organization created in 2023 by Vice President Yolanda Díaz, does not take off either and the candidacy remains as it was: a single deputy.
“The result is very good for Chunta, but bad for Aragón,” acknowledged an exultant Pueyo from the party headquarters in Zaragoza. “It is good for CHA because we are the only party that has resisted the rise of the extreme right, because we became the reference for the left in Aragon and because it has been thanks to young people,” he added.
Likewise other communities with EH Bildu, BNG, Compromís or Más Madrid, a nationalist organization with roots in the territory surpasses the state left, establishing itself as the leader of the bloc. Divided into three ballots, a constant in the regional elections since Podemos was born, the three lists together reach around 13.6% of the vote, a percentage slightly higher than in 2023 (12.23%).
Pueyo, a lawyer by training, but with experience in the media as a television presenter, was chosen to lead Sumar’s candidacy for Zaragoza in the last general elections. At times emulating the figure of Antonio Labordeta, in two and a half years he has managed to carve out his own profile in Congress, with positions that do not always coincide with those of his group and even breaking the voting discipline. This independence of Madrid has been one of the arguments put forward during the campaign and has ended up reaching the progressive electorate. In his speech this Sunday he also accused the popular Jorge Azcón of having been Vox’s “Trojan horse.”
The collapse of Podemos, with a candidate, María Goikoetxea, who was the most unknown of all the candidates, reproduces the general trajectory of a party that debuted in the community with Pablo Echenique at the helm, becoming the third force in 2015 with 14 deputies and 20.5% of the vote and that came to enter in 2019 in the Government led by the socialist Javier Lambán. This Sunday it has obtained less than 1% of the support, well below the ultras of Se Acabó la Fiesta, by Alvise Pérez.
With its departure from the Aragonese Cortes, Podemos becomes extra-parliamentary in nine territories: Madrid, the Valencian Community, the Canary Islands, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Catalonia (after breaking with the Commons it did not even attend there in 2024), Galicia and Euskadi. Furthermore, in Asturias, its only representative abandoned the party, a scenario that will make it very difficult to sustain a solo candidacy for the general elections throughout Spain with former minister Irene Montero at the head, whom the party already launched months ago as a reference. Neither the constant support of both the MEP and the Secretary General, Ione Belarra, nor the agreement in the middle of the campaign with the Government for the extraordinary regularization of immigrants – a sensitive issue for a highly ideologized electorate – have served as a lifeline to the formation, which has exhibited these days the classic Podemos discourse: feminist, focused on the defense of public services and criticism of the economic model of the popular Jorge Azcón. “They were difficult elections,” Goikoetxea stressed in his speech. “In the coming days we will convene our executive for the new stage of reconstruction of the party,” he announced.
The result of Izquierda Unida, with an autonomous coordinator, Marta Abengochea, elected three months ago, reflects that the party has a stable foundation, but also shows the limitations of IU, which does not make profitable its presence in the Government nor obtains great benefits from the confluence with Movimiento Sumar, with little implementation in Aragon. “We are solid ground, certainty,” the head of the list contrasted with the “ungovernable” situation in which the community is left. Unlike in the case of Podemos, Sumar’s ministers have had a discreet presence in the campaign (Yolanda Díaz attended a single event in Huesca and the presence of members of the Government was concentrated in a few days).
These elections have once again exposed the fragmentation of space. While the head of Children and Youth, Sira Rego, accompanied the candidate in Zaragoza, leaders of Más Madrid, such as the deputy of the Assembly Emilio Delgado (in open opposition to the Minister of Health, Mónica García), the spokesperson for Compromís in the Valencian Parliament, Joan Baldoví, or the coordinator of the Green Party (formerly Equo), Mar González, participated in an event with Jorge Pueyo.
The political space will also be fragmented in Castilla y León, with Podemos and the environmentalist Alianza Verde, on the one hand, and Izquierda Unida, Movimiento Sumar and the Green Party, on the other. Any alliance is already conditioned by the race to the general elections, and even more so after a weekend in which the ERC spokesperson in Congress, , announced an event with Delgado to address the problems of the Spanish and the left that will take place on the 18th in Madrid. A true declaration of intentions that revives the debate on the umpteenth refoundation of the left.
