We can consolidate the Belarra-Montero tandem in its most decaffeinated assembly | Spain

As in a collective therapy session or school coexistence, we can open this Friday its V Citizen Assembly asking militancy to stand up, look at each other and sing together. « We wanted to throw us by land and air, and here we continued standing, » the councilor of Malaga Nicolás Sguiglia reinvindicated before singing the classic « Yes you can! », War shout of the organization, which served the public to get warm. Of inaugural anthem, the tango « return », a notice to those who already « gave them for death. » Before modest 500 militants in the Convention Pavilion of the Casa de Campo de Madrid, Pablo Iglesias also reappeared on Friday afternoon, on the first day of the Congress of Podemos. The appointment culminates this Saturday, with the planned re -election of Ione Belarra as general secretary – for the first time, only aspiring position – and only a few days after having postulated the former ministry of equality, Irene Montero, as her candidate for generals.

« Faced with the extreme right it is stupid to propose an agreement around the lesser evil. How to face who speaks ideologically without complexes. What you have to do is a great maximum agreement, » Churches defended in a talk on how to fight the extreme right in Europe and Latin America. In a subsequent intervention against the idea of ​​liberal democracy, he loaded « that other left » to which « the face of shame » does not fall « for saying that the journalists and the judges are » neutral « , in reference to adding, and also questioned the » union left « that asks for a pact » between PP and PSOE to carry out the budgets « , in reference to Unai Sordo, Secretary General of CC.

Four years ago, when Belarra took command, Iglesias was the great absent. He had resigned a month and a half before, the same night of the elections in the Community of Madrid, nothing or very little knew him and avoided giving him the relief In situ so that his return does not eclipse the news of the appointment of the new direction. The political objective in 2021 was very different from that now: leaving behind the marking leadership of the former vice president, betting on a “choral” direction of young women and a bicefalia model with Belarra at the head of the party and Yolanda Díaz as the main active in the generals. Today, however, The organization seeks Pilot the project again on the left, accentuates the opposition profile to add and is very critical of the drift of the Executive and the context of “rearma” in Europe.

When even more than two years are missing for the end of the legislature, the party has already positioned itself in the electoral race by appointing Montero as future head of list of a candidacy « not only of Podemos », a way of trying to mark the step before a add that has already formalized in its assembly that will seek to reissue the alliances of 23-J on the left. But it was Churches himself, whose opinions continue to reflect the line of formation, who fueled the controversy by rejecting the offer of the Diaz group and ensuring that his project is « politically dead. » Deliving the division, last Monday too He released some Forces of that coalition to « walk together. » Sources of the adding parties see the movement as a way to seek to weaken to the vice president’s core, also feeding the theory that a part of that political space must end in the PSOE. While in the environment of the head of Labor they reply that she “neither insults nor is it wrong as an adversary”, the Minister of Health, Mónica García, Collide of Mas Madrid, responded on Tuesday that he was « Fed » to receive lessons and that politics is not « a ball pool. » All the same day that Iglesias He presented his latest book, Intimate enemiesin which he adjusts accounts with Díaz.

The opening of the conclave this Friday pales when comparing it with that foundational congress of Vistalegre more than a decade ago, which would go down in history when the then Eurodiputa, successful communicator and young university professor chosen only a few months before, borrowed a concept of Karl Marx to proclaim before some 7,000 supporters that « the sky is not taken by consensus. It is taken by assault. »

This Friday, the public was distributed in plastic chairs around a semicircular scenario. He listened carefully to the speakers’ words and, when he played, he got up to applaud. One of these moments occurred when supporting María José Pizarro, a Colombian senator who is emerging as the successor of the current president of the country, Gustavo Petro. Another novelty of the Assembly is the presence of a violet point and rainbow to prevent any type of sexual harassment and aggression, as stipulated in its documents. On one side the organization has installed a table with its own products: plates of all kinds, cups with the face of its most outstanding republican leaders or flags.

Adverse context

The political scenario has nothing to do with that of 2014. The PP has been out of the Government for seven years, the ultra -right attracts young people throughout Europe and internal fights have weakened a left today fragmented in small parties. He Last 40DB barometer. It gives the formation of Ione Belarra the 3.3% of voting intention while adding would obtain 5.1%, far between the two of 12.3% achieved that 23-J. Podemos is not in the government, the formation suffered for months of paintings to be added and the regional and municipal of May 2023 were a debacle for them: they stayed out of Five of the six regional coalition executives in which they were. In the Valencian Community, Madrid and the Canary Islands Podemos became extraparliamentary, as was already in Galicia, Castilla-La Mancha and Cantabria. And last year he disappeared from Euskadi and Catalonia, where he did not even appear. In December 2023, the Mixed Group of the Congress and the Lilith Verstrynge resignation, little afterhe left them in four deputies. Only the European ones, when achieving two seats in front of the three of adding, gave him a break. The road to the generals will be long, but the new direction of Belarra has already begun to take the first steps. Negotiations for unity and debate on leadership between Díaz, will draw the final route.