The general coordinator of Podemos in Andalusia, Raquel Martínez, has resigned from her positions in the purple party. The decision, which she communicated on Monday to the Andalusian Citizen Council, had been made months ago, as she acknowledged in a statement, but she did not execute it to avoid interfering in the regional elections on May 17. In her note, she states that one of the reasons that led her to take this step is “the lack of sufficient autonomy” to be able to develop the political project in the community.
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In recent months, Martínez’s disagreements with the national leadership intensified. She, along with the also former number two of the Podemos Executive in Andalusia and former parliamentarian of Por Andalucía, José Manuel Gómez Jurado, favored integration into this coalition, led by the federal coordinator of IU, Antonio Maíllo, negotiated in advance to guarantee the presence of their members in the top positions of the lists. The national leadership’s reluctance to integrate into that confluence delayed the integration process, which was carried out at the last moment, leaving no room for maneuver for the purple party to lead any of the provincial lists.
Although Martínez dissociates her decision from the poor results of the Andalusian elections, where Por Andalucía obtained five deputies, the same as in the previous legislature, the fact that none of their representatives won a seat highlights the disagreements with the national strategy in these elections.
The former general coordinator of Podemos Andalusia actively participated in the electoral campaign. Martínez was elected as the leader of the purple party in the community in December 2024. In the statement in which she makes her resignation public, she acknowledges that she has not “been able to carry out everything” she committed to when she was appointed to the position and wishes her people “luck and the greatest success.” “I also wish them sufficient autonomy to do so, which is no more and no less than the same we ask for Andalusia,” she emphasizes in the note.
That lack of autonomy and visibility of the demands and criteria of the community leaders was what precipitated the first split in the party, with the break of Teresa Rodríguez, one of its founders, who decided to create Adelante Andalucía to channel the more Andalusian nationalist drive of the party, which was not recognized by Pablo Iglesias.