The parties that make up the space of the minority partner of the Government, with Sumar, Comuns, IU, and Más Madrid at the forefront of the new left-wing project Frente Amplio, have responded to Podemos that they will not open a public debate in the media about the possibility of holding open primaries, and have demanded that the purple party, if it wants to formulate any proposal, do so first in a negotiation table with representatives from all organizations.
This was stated by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, at a press conference this Monday, after the meeting held by the forces of the space to analyze the political moment after the call for early elections for November 29, in a context in which Podemos has proposed this process of candidate selection as a condition for convergence and to determine the weight of each organization in the lists.
“Of course, what we will not do, because I believe that what people want from us now is to put together the strongest possible candidacy, is to have a debate through the media. Whoever wants to come and sit at the table to make a proposal like all the other political forces, we are here to debate,” the minister emphasized.
In this regard, he urged Podemos that, if it wants to make any proposal, “it has a chair available” to present it within the framework of that negotiation between forces.
Mónica García advocates for a space of consensus and mutual respect
For her part, the Minister of Health and leader of Más Madrid, Mónica García, has defended that this political project is based on a fraternal relationship between parties, on shared decisions and on a logic in which organizations do not compete with each other. “We are a broad, plural, and diverse political space. We do not compete among ourselves, no one is superfluous. We do it from consensus and we do it from shared decisions and, above all, from mutual respect,” García concluded.
Along the same lines, Urtasun has remarked that the candidacy they intend to promote aims to bring together the alternative left, and has opened the door to also finding frameworks for collaboration with the sovereignist left, although he has specified that the immediate priority is to deploy the state option of Frente Amplio. Urtasun has insisted that the objective of this bloc is to form a broad left-wing candidacy, in which “no one is left out”, and has stressed that the space is considered “essential” to revalidate the coalition government.
Podemos raises pressure with open primaries to the entire left
On the other hand, the MEP and electoral reference of Podemos, Irene Montero, has made a move in view of the early elections and has proposed to the Sumar parties as a condition for convergence the holding of primaries open to the entire left, scheduled for October 14 and 15, with the aim of electing the head of the list of a future coalition.
With this proposal, the purple party redoubles its commitment to settling the weight of each formation in a hypothetical unity list through this primary process, to which Montero herself will run on behalf of Podemos, instead of opening up to a negotiation between parties to agree on positions.
Sources linked to the current Sumar space consider that the offer of the purples is more about “performance” than a real will to approach, and see it as not very serious to launch this type of message in the media, despite the fact that from the purple formation they maintain that they have been conveying this position and talking about it for months.
