They renewed Sanchez’s term to likely start with unresolved Podemos-Sumar dispute

The future Spanish coalition government of the Socialist Party (PSOE/S&D) and the left-wing platform Sumar will have to resolve a severe internal dispute after Unidas Podemos leader Ione Belarra, criticised the head of the progressive group and acting Labour Minister, Yolanda Díaz, over the weekend, asking her not to “disrespect” Podemos in the new executive.

While the date for the investiture debate of acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D) was expected to take place on Wednesday or Thursday, pending the final details of the negotiations with the Catalan separatists in Brussels, a ‘political bomb’ exploded in Sumar on Saturday.

The leader of Unidas Podemos (EU Left) and acting Social Rights Minister, Ione Belarra, accused Sumar, although without directly mentioning Díaz, of marginalising her party, now integrated into the progressive platform which brings together 15 left-wing political formations from various Spanish regions.

“Enough of disrespecting Podemos”, Belarra warned during a speech at her party’s Political Conference, the formation’s highest forum for debate and decision-making, EFE reported.

In the meeting, party members supported – with 86.59 % of votes in favour – the political document of the formation, which will be its internal roadmap in the face of the imminent formal announcement of a government between the PSOE and Sumar.

But far from assuming a role as a simple political appendage of Sumar, Unidas Podemos – which has five MPs in the Spanish parliament – has stressed that it aspires to lead the new government.

“The PSOE seems to be completely determined to form a government in which only the PSOE, Mr Sánchez, is in charge, in which the PSOE does and undoes as it pleases. This, in addition to being a profound political mistake, is enormously irresponsible.  Even socialist voters have to recognise that the driving force behind the main transformation (…) in this legislature has been Podemos,” Belarra stated.

Podemos demands autonomy and ‘real’ power 

The keyword for Unidas Podemos, which aims to be its political leitmotif over the next four years, is “autonomy”. As Belarra made clear at Saturday’s meeting, the party wants to be at the heart of the future executive’s decisions, and that means having important portfolios, not “decorative” or second-rank ones, she warned.

The text approved by the militants in the Political Conference defines Podemos as “an autonomous political force with its own voice”, rejects the double militancy (Unidas Podemos/Sumar) and assures that “in no case will it (Podemos) dissolve into another party”, in an implicit reference to Sumar.

The same forcefulness in words was used by the controversial acting Equality Minister, Irene Montero, who also indirectly warned Díaz.

“The only magic formula they (PSOE and Sumar) have come up with, as they are unable to convince the popular sectors, our peoples, that restoration is better than change, the only thing they are capable of doing is to try to replace Podemos with another party that does not bother those in power without standing in the elections and that lets the political, media and economic powers continue to do so without bothering them too much”, Montero stressed.

Belarra and Montero represent the “hardcore” in Unidas Podemos, and since the progressive party decided last June to join Sumar, both ministers have used all their public interventions to remind Díaz that Podemos does not want to be a mere “political accessory” of Sumar.

Both have made headlines in recent days by condemning Israel’s “genocide” in the Gaza Strip, an expression that provoked a serious diplomatic incident with the Embassy of Israel in Spain.

Montero, a new political burden for Díaz and Sánchez?

Unidas Podemos is not going to “leave” despite the “enormous political price” – according to Montero – that they (Sánchez and Díaz) want to make her party pay for making relevant political transformations in Spain, and even though “now they want that (the previous) coalition government (of PSOE and Unidas Podemos) be an anecdote”.

The rivalry between Díaz and her former colleagues in Unidas Podemos emerged last June when Sumar tacitly vetoed Montero when the left-wing platform was officially registered to prevent Montero from being included on the progressive party’s lists for the snap general elections held in July.

Despite the fact that Montero has been heavily criticised for the unexpected political side-effects of the controversial “only yes means yes” law – which achieved the opposite of what was intended and which had to be urgently amended by parliament since the snap elections on 23 July – Belarra has warned Díaz on several occasions not to marginalise Montero in the future coalition.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)

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