It already happened in 2023. Then, Sumar and Podemos, the two spaces to the left of the PSOE, closed a coalition pact in extremis, just as the legal deadline was about to expire. Now everything indicates that history is repeating itself.
According to sources close to Más Madrid who have detailed it to ElConstitucional.es, Ada Colau is gaining strength and support to lead the Broad Front in the upcoming general elections on November 29.
After months of fruitless negotiations, and after considering other names such as Minister Pablo Bustinduy, Minister Mónica García, or even the possibility of Gabriel Rufián stepping forward, the latest information points to the former mayor of Barcelona.
How has the news been received in Podemos? According to sources from the purple party, this latest proposal "does not align with our approach". They insist on a public primary process that determines, with transparency and participation, the new leadership. Other sources from the party assure that they do not oppose any proposal, but demand that the grassroots decide.
The tension of the past remains latent
Both formations signed a very tense coalition in 2023 to run together in the general elections. Podemos then denounced that Sumar, led by Yolanda Díaz, had imposed an explicit veto on key figures such as the then Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, and had excluded her from the lists.
After Pedro Sánchez's investiture in November 2023, the government reshuffle left Podemos completely out of the Council of Ministers. The portfolios held by the alternative left space passed to other hands: Equality went to Ana Redondo (PSOE); Social Rights, to Bustinduy (Sumar).
That maneuver led to Podemos's final decision: to abandon Sumar's parliamentary group and integrate its five deputies into the Mixed Group. It was, they said, the way to regain "total political autonomy."
Members close to the purple leadership acknowledge that those events are a kind of "living memory" that serves them to demand more guarantees in a process that, years later, is repeating itself. Podemos already has its proposal, with Irene Montero as a candidate, and a formula to converge with other options that involves holding open primaries.
Analysis: the risks for a divided left
The crossroads are asymmetrical. Podemos has little to lose by insisting on primaries: they allow it to present itself as a defender of the grassroots and, if Sumar rejects them, to transfer the cost of a potential breakup to them.
For Sumar and Más Madrid, on the other hand, opening a primary process means ceding control of a name they already consider almost closed. The precedent of 2023 suggests that the pressure of the legal deadline will end up deciding more than positions of principle.
The question remains open as to whether Podemos will demand something more than the method, such as its presence on the lists, or if the primaries are above all a negotiation lever.