Sumar, the new political party to the left of the PSOE, which intends to gather all the political capital Podemos once had as a result of the 15-M citizen movement, known as the indignados —which today, eleven years later, has been discouraged or diluted—, has just begun its journey. That movement gave way to a generation of activists and politicians that shook the Spanish political chessboard and, for a while, it seemed the historical bipartisanship that has characterized Spanish public life, with the PP and the PSOE as the only actors, was transformed first into a three-way contest with Podemos and then into a four-way contest with Ciudadanos.
That scenario was but a mirage and evaporated at the same speed with which it arrived. Ciudadanos exploded because it lacked a program and deep roots in the territory, except for a minimal structure in Catalonia. Also, because it stopped being useful for the establishment that fuelled it in order to destabilize Catalonia, which, with the irruption of Vox, realized that three right-wing political forces were too many. Today, Ciudadanos has sunk and any attempt at relaunching is doomed to failure, no matter how much it changes its name and logo's colour. Its time has passed.
It is not exactly the case of Podemos, which retains a strong territorial structure and an important institutional presence: since 2018, this political party has ministers in the Spanish government for the first time and, therefore, has an important position from which to spread its political ideas. Podemos also has important mayoralties, such as that of Barcelona with Ada Colau and En Común Podem, a catalan coalition led by Podemos. In total, Podemos has 33 deputies in Congress, 6 deputies in the European Parliament, 64 deputies in regional parliaments, 76 mayors and over a thousand councillors.
With the movement consumed and condemned to a practically flat electoral situation, the left does something that has worked before and reinvents itself under the acronym Sumar, with Yolanda Díaz, second deputy PM of Spain, a politician fed with a lot of media self-promotion who usually avoids confrontation, at its head. Her presentation at the Matadero site in Madrid, on Friday, was the starting shot and the last chance for Pedro Sánchez to continue at the Moncloa palace. Curiously, the Socialist leader needs a strong political formation to his left in order to balance the sum between PP and Vox. We will see, therefore, if the oxygen of the socialist media will be enough to reactivate the most demobilized sectors of the left.
All this is happening while the economic crisis is knocking at the door and with a bleak outlook of high inflation, rising interest rates, increasing energy prices and lack of raw materials. Sri Lanka, south of India, is a long way away, but the president's resignation, announced on Saturday after months of protests, is due to the economic crisis, power cuts, fuel queues and food shortages. One does not have to travel that far to see the protests already taking place in Europe, with a very important focus in Italy, but also in the Netherlands, Poland, France or Estonia, to name four states. The sanctions on Russia are starting to have real consequences in Europe.