Izquierda Unida (IU), Comuns, Más Madrid and Movimiento Sumar (MS) met this Saturday in Barcelona. The meeting aimed to present their still nebulous alliance for the elections scheduled in 2027, and the bad moment the PSOE is going through, mired in various scandals, has served them to mark their profile, claim themselves as the “clean left” and sell themselves as the engine of the coalition government. Pedro Sánchez’s partners are asking him to move and give explanations. “Is there a plot? The answer is with laws, measures and exemplary behavior,” summarized IU coordinator Antonio Maíllo. Sumar places housing at the center of that response.
The stop in the Catalan capital of Un paso al frente managed to fill the 350 seats of the ONCE Building auditorium. Several people even had to follow the event from a screen and chairs outside the venue. It followed the trail of the first launch in February in Madrid and the rally held in the Andalusian pre-campaign in Seville. Few specifics about the project — such as the name or how to choose its candidate — but a boost of optimism in a horrible week for the Spanish left.
“We have to tell the truth. It is obvious that there is an attack on the Government, but the investigations that appear are very worrying,” said the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, who closed the interventions. “Corruption does great harm to democracy, because while [these scandals come out] there are people who do not make ends meet. But here there is a clean political space, which faces the needs of the people,” added the visible head of the Comuns in the Government.
His intervention, like those of ministers Mónica García and Pablo Bustinduy, or those of Maíllo and Lara Hernández (MS), revolved around establishing themselves as that clean left that will not let the coalition government fall so as not to “abandon the people.” That said, all also insisted that this is not a blank check and have set tasks for Sánchez.
“The information is serious and deserves concrete actions. It is a persecution, but responsibilities must be assumed. We ask that your Ferraz headquarters not be a burden for the progressive majority of this country,” said Urtasun.
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An idea on which Maíllo also focused his speech, who arrives in Barcelona after renewing his results in the Andalusian elections, although losing the hegemony of his space to Adelante Andalucía. “It is not just about saying that there is a plot against the Government. It is about responding. And the answer is with laws, measures and exemplary behavior,” he assured.
“The Socialist Party has to explain why it had two absolutely inadvisable organization heads. And it will have to explain why a former president who can live very well with the compensation that the State gives him to dignify his life after holding office dedicates himself to who knows what and to depositing thousands of euros in invoices,” added the Andalusian deputy. Hernández also put the PSOE under the microscope: “For corruption not to enter the house, you have to keep it clean and orderly. And you have to know why you came: whether to defend your personal interest or the general one,” she concluded.
Both the Minister of Health, Mónica García, and her counterpart for Social Rights and Consumption, Pablo Bustinduy, outlined that list of tasks they believe the coalition government must push in the midst of an “offensive.” “Against the refrain that there is nothing to be done, that you have to give up, quite the opposite. More determination than ever: housing decree and benefit against child poverty,” said the minister. Sumar has always insisted it will try to recover the royal decree that included the extension of rents and that did not pass the parliamentary validation sieve last April. However, it still does not clarify when and with what majority. García, for her part, joked about how the hantavirus crisis would have been managed with the right in La Moncloa.
Among the audience were geographer Jordi Borja, the leader of the Comuns in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, MEP Jaume Asens and former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau. The latter was mentioned by Gerardo Pisarello, mayoral candidate for the Comuns in Barcelona, who launched a jab against the Government and its constant reference to lawfare: “Where was the Socialist Party when Barcelona en Comú and the independents were being bombarded with lawsuits?” Esquerra Republicana, which rejects any alliance at the state level with the alternative left, sent a representative to the event: Adrià Guevara, the party’s secretary of international relations.
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