Irene Montero endorses teaming up with Rufián in the next general elections
The two leaders will hold a joint event in Barcelona to defend the unity of the left.
BarcelonaFirst stop, Madrid, and now it's Barcelona's turn. Gabriel Rufián will return to the campaign trail on April 9th to defend his proposal for a national left-wing front. He will do so alongside Podemos MEP Irene Montero, at an event in Barcelona moderated by former Comuns leader Xavier Domènech. feeling The relationship between Rufián and Montero is well-known, and, as happened with Emilio Delgado in Madrid, similar speeches will likely be heard. This Thursday, in fact, Podemos's next candidate for the general elections considered it "a very good idea" to team up with Rufián in the elections. In an interview with RTVE, Montero stressed the importance of citizens knowing that there are people "willing to play and win the game" against the far right. The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, also celebrated the alliance between Montero and Rufián: "I can't think of a better team to give people hope that we can govern from the left," she also told RTVE. Rufián's views, however, are not so well received within his party. The ERC leadership has repeatedly distanced itself from the left-wing unity project, and internal criticism is mounting, to the point that some members are demanding that the "disobedience" of the party's spokesperson in Madrid be addressed by the party's disciplinary committee.
After the left's resounding defeat in the Castile and León elections, where Podemos and Sumar failed to win any seats in the regional parliament with disappointing results, Rufián declared: "Zero seats to the left of the PSOE. Doing nothing (or doing the same old thing) is pure negligence." Faced with the proliferation of regional governments with PP and Vox majorities and the very real possibility of an alliance between these two parties to form a government after the next general elections, the Esquerra leader tirelessly calls for a united left-wing front in Spain.
He did so on February 19th in Madrid, accompanied by Emilio Delgado, a regional deputy from Más Madrid, and will do so again in Barcelona on April 9th with Podemos MEP Irene Montero. Sources close to the ERC spokesperson in Congress explained to ARA that the event "is part of the necessary debate" he initiated a month ago on "what needs to be done about the far right." "It's an act and nothing more than an act," the same voices insisted, distancing it from future electoral alliances, which they emphasized are a matter for the parties.
Rufián's proposal involves establishing "three or four common programmatic points" for the left and having the parties present themselves province by province. "Each one in their own house, and antifascism, the right to self-determination, and the improvement of living conditions, in everyone's," he solemnly declared at the event in Madrid, where he opened the door to forming a joint parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies.
The ERC spokesperson's proposal does not have the endorsement of the ERC leadership, nor does it have the support of the majority of the parties to which he is appealing. Not even in the summer,when he launched the proposalNor now, but Rufián does not back down from his commitment to forming a broad left-wing and sovereignist front that tries to stop the far right with an eye on the next general elections. "ERC will be presented under the acronym ERC""This is what the Republicans' general secretary, Elisenda Alamany, emphasized at a press conference just before the event in Madrid."
Tardà's endorsement alone
Rufián was quick to respond. "What's coming won't be stopped by party labels, it will be stopped by the people [...]. To believe that fascism will stop at the border of your headquarters or your nation because it votes differently is negligent magic," retorted the Republican leader, adding: "More brains and less naiveté." Rufián's predecessor in the Madrid post, Joan Tardà, does endorse the initiative.
During the presentation of his book this Monday in Barcelona, the former Republican spokesperson in Congress again defended a left-wing front in Spain and also in Catalonia. "Don't back down. And consider the whole context, but don't back down," he directly urged Rufián, who was sitting next to him. The Republican leadership doesn't buy into the proposal that Rufián has publicly launched, but Tardà is pushing for it to be debated internally within ERC through the internal faction he leads, Àgora.
Sources within Sumar have explained to ARA that they "welcome" "all conversations, actions, and gestures" aimed at "responding to the social demand to build the broadest possible space" to prevent a future PP-Vox government. From the Socialist ranks, the First Vice President of the Spanish government, María Jesús Montero, has maintained that "the articulation" to the left of the PSOE is "important" and has welcomed the possibility of an alliance, including with Sumar, of all these political formations.
However, the other sovereignist or pro-independence left-wing parties in Spain have not received Rufián's proposal with open arms. The CUP, which is not running in the Spanish elections, has rejected forming a coalition in the Catalan elections. And Bildu and the BNG, two of the parties with which ERC is running in the European elections, believe that the ERC spokesperson's initiative is not currently on the table, nor is it the right time to address it, as Compromís has also made clear.