Irene Montero presents her candidacy for the general elections: "Good people are the majority"

BarcelonaWhile the Spanish right and far-right lead all the polls, which comfortably give them the next state executive, the Spanish left confirms its division, immersed in internecine struggles, especially between Sumar and Podemos. Thus, MEP Irene Montero officially announced this Saturday her candidacy for Podemos in the upcoming Spanish elections—which will have to be ratified by the membership in open primaries—. "I believe that good people are the majority and that people willing to contribute something so that things change are the majority, and for that reason, I will run in the next general elections," Montero asserted. In her view, "it is a difficult task, but it is worth using politics so that people live well."

This Saturday's event served as the staging of a program that Podemos members have ironically stated their detractors would label as "revolutionary and far-left." Against the "food mafia" and "housing accumulation," Montero defended "expropriation and price control." In fact, her diagnosis is that "the system is built to make money" and that it is "a robbery" in favor of the minority of "super-rich": "We must limit the prices of everything we need to live," she stressed.

And she gave an "anti-racist" speech: "When I hear people say that the fault lies with migrants, can't you look up and not to the side?" she asked, pointing to the political and media right as culprits in creating self-serving narratives. On a point of self-criticism, she highlighted that "all the progress made with the momentum of the 15-M movement has not allowed us to end the process of wealth accumulation." Now she returns to "the basics," taking care of "peace, home, and work," which was the slogan that headed the event. Among the proposals are the thirty-hour work week—not 40 or 37.5—or the 1,800 euros monthly minimum wage.

Deputy Ione Belarra praised Montero and warned that it would have been "easy to retire very comfortably" because "it is very easy if you sell out to those in charge." Perhaps she was referring to Minister Yolanda Díaz, her arch-enemy who is proposed as a candidate for the International Labour Organization, who was criticized harshly on multiple occasions this Saturday. In any case, Belarra said that "a fighting mother is needed at the head of the country" like Montero.

Fratricidal war

The "yes we can" resonated strongly on 15-M with the revolt of the indignant during the height of the crisis, but the situation has nothing to do with 2026. Proof of the fratricidal war on the Spanish left was the intervention of the LGBTI secretary of the purple party, Mar Cambrollé, before Montero spoke. She referred to Sumar as the "party that lives on publicity stunts", which "allowed a criminal campaign against the law" of the only yes is yes and against Irene Montero when she was Minister of Equality, and that "lives on posturing". Afterwards, she still had the opportunity to define the PSOE as a "regime party" and a continuation of the PP. At the same time, the secretary of anti-racism of the purples, Serigne Mbayé, has already warned that "the campaign will be tough" because even though they say they are "a few cats", they "fear them", in his opinion, the "enemies of the right, extreme right and the fake left". They believe they are more necessary than ever in the face of the growth of the extreme right, although for the moment the numbers and the division augur a bad prognosis for the elections.

Belarra also stated that, in the face of "the reactionary racist offensive in Ceuta", they have "lost ground", while Mbayé defined himself as "more Spanish" than "those with the little bracelet" and the flag. Cambrollé has also called for a kind of LOAPA or harmonization in education throughout Spain to guarantee content on sexuality, gender and LGBTI rights.