The day that Gabriel Rufián stopped being likeable in Madrid

BarcelonaThe facts are these: The Broad Front, which wanted to re-edit the Sumar formula of 2023, has not been possible at a general level, so that both Irene Montero and Ada Colau will be formally candidates for the presidency of the Spanish government. Neither of them, however, is the preferred candidate for the bulk of Spanish left-wing voters, who prefer, oh surprise, the republican Gabriel Rufián. And now let us recap.

Rufián has been arguing for months that the left to the left of the PSOE had to explore electoral formulas to maximize votes in the face of the threat of a PP-Vox government. In reality, however, the main problem was the divorce between Podemos and Sumar, since, if the Spanish left was not capable of reaching an agreement, why should the different national lefts join it?

That is when Rufián makes a move that shakes the board: he drags his party into an agreement with Podemos in Catalonia. If we are to believe his discourse, he saw it as a previous step to a broader unity with the Comuns, but the reality has been completely different. Podemos has taken advantage of the pact with Rufián to shield itself against the encirclement that Ada Colau and her team were preparing to add them to the Broad Front. For practical purposes, then, Rufián has achieved exactly the opposite effect to what he was looking for: he has made the unity of the lefts more difficult.

The consequence of all this is that Rufián has lost his luster as a consensus candidate for the Spanish left and has earned many enemies in Madrid, starting with Emilio Delgado and certain progressive influencers progressives. He is no longer so likable now. But beware, this does not mean that Rufián is losing popular support, which he maintains intact, but he is losing part of that media complicity he has enjoyed until now. And this, for the Calàbria offices that Rufián likes so little, is not exactly bad news.

The details

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