Podemos resists Sumar's outstretched hand: "It's politically dead."

MadridOne of the headlines of the Sumar assembly, which concluded this Sunday, was the call for unity within the left-wing coalition of the PSOE. Yolanda Díaz's party has acknowledged that to hold out in the next electoral cycle, it is necessary to rebuild a coalition that was fragmented by Podemos's departure from the parliamentary group in Congress. The horizon that Sumar proposes for 2027, when the next general elections are scheduled, is that the parties that united under the Sumar banner in 2023 will rejoin the coalition. This includes Podemos, with whom negotiations were agonizing and fraught with tension. Is this a possible scenario?

From the outset, Podemos has reacted by expressing contempt for Díaz's new party and asserting its character and autonomy from Sumar. The purple party's diagnosis is that they are better off alone, at least until there are elections. The one who has spoken most harshly and forcefully in this regard is, as usual, Pablo Iglesias. The day after the second vice president invited them to "walk together," the former Podemos leader reiterated that Sumar is "politically dead." Iglesias urged the party he founded "not to get caught up in the toxicity" he attributes to Díaz's project, although he has not ruled out negotiating an electoral coalition. However, according to the former Spanish vice president, part of Sumar will end up being absorbed by the PSOE, and the confluence, if it comes about, will be with the sectors that resist.

Shortly afterward, the current leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, spoke during the presentation of her candidacy to continue leading the party ahead of its own assembly on April 11 and 12. The names accompanying him on a continuing list called "Proudly Podemos" are from the party's core, with Irene Montero as the most well-known face and some additions from trans, pro-Palestinian, and anti-racist activism. Belarra has avoided the frontal attack on Sumar that Iglesias has been allowed, but party sources point out that the current leadership's agreement with the former leader's positions is well known. Publicly, Belarra has taken a few digs downplaying Díaz's influence on Pedro Sánchez's administration and championing Podemos as the "courageous" left. Montero, banned by Díaz from the Sumar list for June 23, has insisted on attributing lukewarmness to the minority party in the Spanish government and has called for a truly transformative "powerful" left to be "reestablished" on its feet.

Thus, in Madrid, the same hostility from Podemos toward Díaz's project is felt, and bridges, beyond this public appeal, remain broken without ongoing talks to explore a new path to understanding, as they acknowledge to Sumar. However, parties that still make up the alliance led by the vice president, such as Izquierda Unida and the Comunes, insisted this Monday. "Everyone in and without vetoes," requested the Secretary of Organization of IU, Eva García Sempere. The coordinator of the Comunes, Candela López, celebrated that Sumar's roadmap is unity and claimed that "it will always be thanks to Catalonia that it will be possible throughout the State."