Guide to understand what is happening to the left of the PSOE

BarcelonaFriday is the deadline to present coalitions for the upcoming general elections and, at this moment, negotiations between the parties to the left of the PSOE remain open. In 2023, the agreement to form Sumar arrived at the last minute (with Podemos inside, despite the veto on Irene Montero) and, this year, it is on its way to being resolved for better or worse at the last minute as well. In fact, the stumbling block remains how to unite the parties that make up the Broad Front – Moviment Sumar, United Left, Más Madrid, and the Comuns – with Podemos, which right now would run alone. The purple party, however, has sought an alliance with Gabriel Rufián and ERC, wanting it to be a catalyst and a way to put pressure on the Broad Front in the negotiation. Are there possibilities for a joint candidacy? What would happen with ERC if Podemos integrates into the Broad Front?

Between the Broad Front and Podemos there is still a whole series of parties that are orbiting without joining, for the moment, either of the two blocs. There is Compromís, the CHA and Més per Mallorca, which three years ago integrated into Sumar and now prefer to use their own acronyms and try to reach agreements with the main actors to configure the candidacies in the Valencian Country, Aragon and the Balearic Islands. And there are other left-wing formations consolidated in the territory, such as the BNG, Bildu or Forward Andalusia, that want nothing to do with state alliances.

Ada Colau, the confirmed candidate to lead the Broad Front, made a call this Tuesday to continue negotiating with Podemos and ERC to bring them closer to the coalition and achieve "a single left-wing candidacy": "There is still time, let's sit down and keep talking", she defended in a video on social media. In fact, the same Irene Montero, candidate for Podemos, assured that contacts with the new Sumar continue and did not consider the negotiations broken. However, the purple party continues with its open primaries process that it started last week and that ends this Thursday. It is the method that Podemos has defended to negotiate with the Broad Front: that everyone presents their own candidacy and that the citizenry decides who they prefer as a candidate. A path, however, that its interlocutors reject.

What would happen if the negotiations finally end in an agreement? Then there would be a single candidacy throughout the State, although it would remain to be seen if this would be replicated in all provinces, that is to say, if in Madrid, for example, the agreement would mean having two candidacies, one from the Broad Front and another from Podemos with Irene Montero at the head. In fact, this is one of the theses that Pablo Iglesias defended this week on TVE: that in large provinces like Barcelona or Madrid, the union of the left is not as essential as in small provinces, because the electoral system does not penalize two candidacies.

In the Spanish capital, Podemos and Més Madrid have had a broken relationship for some time. In fact, Mónica García's party is a splinter group of the 'purples'. This weekend the Minister of Health announced a step back and said that she would not be the Broad Front candidate in Madrid, but that she was delegating the position to Emilio Delgado. He is a person from the critical wing of Més Madrid and with whom Gabriel Rufián held his first act to defend a unitary front a few months ago. Delgado's election should also be read as an attempt to get closer to Podemos, like the election of Ada Colau as a presidential candidate, due to the relationship of respect they maintain with Irene Montero.

And Compromís or Més per Mallorca?

Three years ago, Sumar brought together Esquerra Unida, Comuns, Més Madrid, and also, in a last-minute pact, Podemos –in exchange for Irene Montero being left off the ticket–. The coalition also incorporated other sovereignist left-wing formations, such as Compromís. Now, however, the Valencians are negotiating a single candidacy with the Esquerra Unida and Podemos federations of the Valencian Country, but the party will not be part of the state coalition. Més per Mallorca and the Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) are in a similar situation, having for the moment rejected joining the Broad Front –unlike what they did in 2023–.

Neither will Endavant Andalusia be there, which split from Podemos years ago and in the last elections ran alone in Andalusia. The formation led by Teresa Rodríguez collected the left-wing Andalusianist vote in the last Andalusian elections this past June and finished ahead of the coalition between Esquerra Unida, Podemos, and Sumar. It will also run alone this November 29th, as will EH Bildu and the BNG. In fact, the Abertzales will repeat their alliance with ERC in the Senate.

How would ERC stand if there is an agreement between the Broad Front and Podemos?

While waiting to see if the talks between the Broad Front and Podemos reach a successful conclusion, the party that the purple party has indeed signed an alliance with is ERC. It is not a coalition, but a "collaboration" pact –as both formations describe it– so that Podemos does not run in Catalonia, in exchange for the Republicans incorporating members of Podemos into their list. Furthermore, Rufián and Montero will hold joint campaign events in Madrid and Barcelona. If the purples end up reaching a pact with the Broad Front to run together, ERC will have to assess how this affects their agreement with Podemos. Would they allow Rufián to campaign hand-in-hand with Colau in the rest of the State when they would be facing each other electorally in Catalonia?

In contrast, Rufián has once again called for his party to reach an agreement with Comuns in Catalonia to run together. A scenario that ERC completely rejects, which also rules out joining the Broad Front. Comuns does not view a union with ERC favorably either. Their spokesperson in Parliament, David Cid, insisted on this Tuesday, making it clear that his party will run under its own brand in Catalonia. Cid, however, did assure that he maintains hope of uniting the parties to the left of the PSOE on a national scale, reports Gerard Fageda.