Over recent hours, a significant part of the space that Spanish deputy PM Yolanda Díaz brought together through her Sumar platform has become unhappy because of Podemos's announcement that its five MPs are leaving the parliamentary group. They will go to the mixed group in Congress of Deputies and will thus force the Socialists (PSOE) to negotiate with one more political party than it does at present. It is obvious that all the noise is theatre, as this was a story written long ago and there was no one who didn't know it. First, they had difficulty in composing the candidature lists for Spain's July 23rd election, but the fact is that in the creation of Pedro Sánchez's government, Díaz asked for Podemos to be deprived of the ministries it previously headed, and the alternative left party had given plenty of advance warning about how it would respond.
What cannot be justified is to play with fire, get burned, and then pretend to be upset. Podemos has made the most predictable move possible; whether it succeeds or fails is another matter. The fact that it is understandable does not mean that it will be successful or not, something that will only be seen with time. In any case, it is no small concern for Sánchez. Something that, surely, he can only succeed in disguising because the risks of the legislature are so great that the prime minister, given his character, may well think that he no longer has a problem.
Podemos obtains an important voice of its own and will be able to play its cards as a more radical left-wing movement against a more moderate politician like Díaz
In any case, Podemos obtains an important voice of its own in a legislature that, above all, will be a territorial debate, and in which it will be able to play its cards as a more radical left-wing movement compared with a more moderate politician like Díaz. Here we will see how parties such as the Basque Nationalists (PNV) and Together for Catalonia (Junts) play the game, and if, in this strategic alliance that Carles Puigdemont's party has formalized with that of Andoni Ortuzar, they act as containment to initiatives that have a veneer of marked confrontation with business sectors, which Junts has also promised to take care better care of in this new stage, with influence in Madrid, than in the past.
We will soon see how this unfolds in Congress, and we will also witness an interesting struggle between, on the one hand, the alliance of Sumar and its Catalan associate En Comú, and on the other, Podemos on its own, in the European elections that are to take place on Sunday, June 9th, 2024. For the first of the candidacies, there has been talk of the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, and for the second, of the former minister Irene Montero. In any case, both spaces will have to work hard if they want to avoid the European campaign damaging them in the face of subsequent electoral contests, such as the Basque, Galician and Catalan elections.