The exemplary student who failed his driving test three times and who did not want to join Podemos

MadridIrene Montero (Madrid, 1988) is one of the last bastions of Podemos. The woman who was the second Minister of Equality in history and ended up excluded from the Sumar lists for the 23-J of 2023 has now returned to the political front line as the candidate for the purple party in the general elections of November 29th. She wants to return to Madrid two years after having been elected as a Member of the European Parliament.

She grew up in a believing and practicing family and, when she was little, she went to mass regularly with her grandmother: “I was even an altar server at my village church,” she recounted in an interview with Cadena SER. Although she said that she has never believed in God. A person who worked side by side with her explains to ARA that going to the theater is one of her passions and that, in her free time, she likes to listen to music and have wine with her friends. She also says that she is a “hard worker,” a diagnosis that she shares: she finished her psychology degree with a grade point average of over nine and earned nine distinctions in her master's degree. Despite this, a few months ago she recalled with frustration that she failed her practical driving test three times. It was the first exam she had ever failed. She herself has also claimed her past as a cashier at the Saturno supermarket in San Sebastián de los Reyes —a fact that some political rivals use to belittle her— and as the daughter of a delivery man and a school teacher.

Her origins in activism date back to the Union of Communist Youth of Spain (UJCE), where she began militant activity in 2005, at the age of sixteen. In 2009, she studied for a semester in Santiago, Chile, where she learned about the organizational processes of the student movement. Starting in 2010, she became involved in the initial steps of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH) in Madrid and, subsequently, became involved in organizing the Youth Without Future marches. She went with a friend she had met in the hallways of the Autonomous University of Madrid: Ione Belarra, the current general secretary of Podemos. With the outbreak of the 15-M movement, Irene Montero began participating in the PAH's communication commission and later became involved in the assemblies that organized the mobilizations to surround the Congress of Deputies.

But her life changed completely in 2014. Rafa Mayoral invited her to a hamburger restaurant in the center of Madrid because Pablo Iglesias had asked him to find people to build Podemos. “I told him that we could not take on this commitment,” recalls Irene Montero in her book. She also confesses that the first time she met Iglesias –it was at a training workshop for United Left– she did not “particularly like” him. But they ended up falling in love and having three children.

The emergence of Podemos

Irene Montero accompanied Podemos first from the background, but after the 15-M she joined the party's territorial extension commission and began to participate formally. She was on Íñigo Errejón's team and slept in the homes of militants throughout the territory while they organically built the organization. From the summer of 2014, she began to prioritize Podemos more progressively and started leaving her responsibilities at the PAH. At the beginning of 2015, she turned down a scholarship to be able to dedicate 100% of her time to it.

She became a deputy in January 2016, in the elections that broke the two-party system, and a year and a half later she was in charge of defending the motion of no confidence that Podemos presented against Mariano Rajoy with Pablo Iglesias as the candidate. “Ask for forgiveness and return what you have stolen,” she retorted to the Popular Party members.

When he was about to quit

In those first years there was a moment that almost hit rock bottom. It was January 2019, when Errejón and Manuela Carmena announced that they were creating a platform to run in the Madrid regional elections. “Pablo and I had a long conversation and we cried a lot together. For the first time we seriously considered that it was not worth continuing”, Montero recounts in her book. Another critical moment had been 2018, when she and Iglesias bought a 600,000 euro villa in Galapagar. After it became public, Podemos called a consultation with the membership to decide if they should resign, but 68% of those who voted endorsed that they continue.

The leap to the Ministry of Equality

The second major turning point in Irene Montero's career arrived in January 2020, when the PSOE and Unidas Podemos formed the first coalition government of Spanish democracy. She was appointed Minister of Equality and her mandate had two main milestones. The heads were the laws that expanded and shielded rights: the reform of the abortion law and the trans and LGTBI rights guarantee law. The tails was the only yes means yes law: what had been the great conquest of Podemos in the Council of Ministers began to facilitate sentence reductions for rapists.

Irene Montero attributed it to "sexist" readings of the law, but the PSOE ended up making a pact with the PP to modify it, isolating Podemos from the equation and opening a rift between the partners. With the calling of the July 23rd elections, Podemos agreed to join the Sumar candidacy, but Yolanda Díaz vetoed Irene Montero from being part of the lists. And, after Pedro Sánchez's new investiture, the 'purples' were also left out of the council of ministers. "I wish that you are never left alone and that you have the courage to unsettle the 40 and 50-year-old men who are friends of the president," she told her successor, the socialist Ana Redondo, when she handed over the portfolio. What was she referring to? During the election campaign, Pedro Sánchez had criticized the "speeches of confrontation" that the Ministry of Equality had championed.