Irene Montero claims the vote for Podemos to promote changes after 29N and defends its alliance with ERC: "We are going to dispute every vote and every seat"

Irene Montero wants Podemos to reach the general elections on November 29 with a clear message for its voters. The candidate for the Presidency of the Government has claimed her party's ability to promote social changes and has assured that she will go out to "contest every vote and every seat" in a campaign that she will face together with the spokesperson for Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), Gabriel Rufián.

The former Minister of Equality defended this Friday that the deputies Podemos obtains will serve to negotiate measures on rental prices, food, and speculative housing purchases if, after 29N, there is a majority that allows the investiture of Pedro Sánchez.

"That is what we are going to negotiate, with that we would like to be part of a Government that can do those things and many more," she explained during her speech at the Europa Press Informative Breakfasts. Montero thus made it clear that her party will put its proposals on the table in an eventual negotiation with the PSOE.

The candidate also claimed the agreement reached with ERC for these elections, which she defined as a "republican, plurinational and anti-fascist" alliance. In Catalonia, Podemos will support the list headed by Rufián, while the republican leader will participate in campaign events with Montero outside the community.

Montero claims the usefulness of each seat

The Podemos leader has questioned the calls for the so-called "useful vote", common in campaigns to ask voters to concentrate their support on candidacies with more possibilities of obtaining representation or forming a Government.

Montero believes that this appeal can lead citizens to renounce the political option they prefer. Against this, she has defended that the value of a seat also depends on the measures that its representatives are willing to promote and their ability to negotiate after the elections.

"There are times when, as we have shown, many seats are worth nothing if they stay seated and few seats, when working hard, achieve things that seem unimaginable," said the candidate, who aspires to obtain the greatest possible support at the polls.

Her message comes after Podemos and Frente Amplio failed to close a joint candidacy for Congress in most of the country. In Madrid, where Montero heads her party's list, voters will find separate ballots from Podemos and from the coalition that has Ada Colau as a candidate for the Presidency.

This division opens a dispute for the electorate to the left of the PSOE. In provinces that elect few deputies, splitting the vote among several candidacies can make it difficult for any to gain representation. In larger constituencies, such as Madrid, the split offers more opportunities, although the result will depend on the votes each list obtains.

Asked about the future of Podemos given the possibility of being left without a seat for Madrid, Montero has assured that her party "will continue to do politics always". The candidate has highlighted both her militants and the people who mobilize in the streets, beyond the institutional presence of the party.

The alliance with Rufián and the proposals for 29N

The agreement with ERC is one of Podemos' main bets for this campaign. In Catalonia, the purple party will not present its own candidacy and will support that of the republicans, who incorporate two members of Podemos as independents in the sixth and tenth positions on the list for Barcelona. Rufián and Montero will also share electoral events outside Catalonia.

The collaboration allows both parties to defend a shared project during the campaign, although each maintains its own candidacy in the constituencies where it runs. Montero recalled that Podemos has been working with sovereignist left-wing forces for some time and has advocated for a progressive and plurinational majority.

At the same time, the candidate has again distanced herself from Frente Amplio, which she reproaches for its closeness to the PSOE. Montero has especially highlighted the agreement between the socialists and several forces from Colau's space to run jointly for the Senate in a large part of the constituencies.

The lack of a general pact for Congress has not prevented territorial agreements. Podemos and forces from Frente Amplio will run together in the Valencian Community and the Canary Islands, where candidacies have been formed with parties from each territory.

In programmatic terms, Montero has placed housing, prices, and public services among Podemos' priorities. For a potential investiture negotiation, she proposes prohibiting speculative housing purchases and lowering and limiting rental and food prices.

The candidate has also proposed allocating the 24 billion euros that, according to her calculations, military spending has increased since 2023 to social policies. Among the measures she has proposed with these resources are nationalizing Repsol, hiring 40,000 healthcare professionals and as many teachers, expropriating the use of housing from investment funds, and creating a public supermarket.

These are proposals that Podemos will try to bring to the negotiation after 29N if it achieves representation and there is a majority to invest a president. "Let's not settle for patches," Montero defended, who called for promoting profound changes against the possibility of an involution of the far right.