The left is divided in Aragon and ignores the lessons of the Extremadura 'miracle'

BarcelonaThe nearly 88,000 Aragonese voters who opted for the Sumar ballot in the 2023 general elections will face a dilemma in the upcoming regional elections on February 8th. While on that occasion they were able to vote for a unified candidacy of the forces to the left of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), now they will have to choose between three different lists: that of Izquierda Unida (United Left) and Sumar, that of Podemos, and that of the Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) and Verds Equo. Adding to this predicament is the fact that, while competing electorally, the Chunta will remain part of the Sumar group in Congress. Of the three parties, the CHA currently holds the most seats in the Aragonese Parliament: it has three representatives, ahead of Podemos (1 representative) and Izquierda Unida (1 representative). To make matters worse, the CHA candidate is none other than... Jorge Pueyo, member of Congress and, therefore, a member of Sumar in the lower house.

The five parties accuse each other of cross-vetoes for not having put together a joint candidacy, while the PSOE is betting on Pilar Alegría, former Minister of Education, to recover from declining electoral expectations (which have not been helped by the current situation). his photo having lunch with Paco Salazar, (when he had already been accused of sexual harassment). The alternative left also failed to achieve unity in the Basque, Galician, and Catalan elections. where Podemos decided not to run And the list was ultimately only for the Commons. It hasn't been possible even after the unprecedented result for this political space in Extremadura, in the only unified list produced since... of the divorce of Sumar and Podemos in CongressWhile the PSOE was sinking, Unidas por Extremadura went from 4 to 7 seats, surpassing the historic record of six deputies that Podemos obtained in 2015, at the height of the rise of the party then led by Pablo Iglesias.

Sources consulted from these parties differ on what derailed the negotiations to agree on a list and try to prevent the PP candidate and current president, Jorge Azcón, from repeating an agreement with the far right, with whom he governed until Vox withdrew en masse from all the regional governments. The horizon was the miracle of ExtremaduraThis breaks the trend of poor results for the alternative left in Galicia (where neither Podemos nor Sumar won seats), the Basque Country (where Sumar won one seat and Podemos became the leader), and Catalonia (where Comuns dropped from eight to six). "Extremadura is on everyone's lips," a source from United Left who participated in the talks told ARA, although they clarified that, in the case of Aragon, the starting point for negotiations was different.

Podemos veto?

Several sources agree that it was the Podemos leadership in Madrid that vetoed an agreement that included Sumar, despite offering them a 50/50 split of electoral rights and financial resources. The purple party reportedly requested to lead the list, a point that United Left proposed resolving in primaries, which Ione Belarra's party rejected. Sources within Podemos argue that they specifically wanted to replicate "the Extremadura model," in which the candidacy was headed by Irene de Miguel of Podemos, with a number two candidate from United Left. "Other parties took a different path, and that's what prevented the agreement," they say. In a message to X, former Podemos leader Pablo Echenique, from Aragon, even accused United Left of having struck a "phantom" deal with a national delegation of Sumar—which has a very small presence in the region—to "sabotage" a formula like the one used in Extremadura.

One of the factors influencing the negotiations was the evolution of Podemos in Aragon: since 2015, when they won 9 seats, they have suffered several setbacks, ending up with only 1 deputy in 2023. The following year, the leadership resigned en masse due to disagreements with their sole deputy, and the party was left in the hands of an interim committee until November of that year. In this context, and at a time when United Left is fighting to reclaim its name in the face of the Sumar crisis, the party refused to compromise. As a result, María Goicoechea will head the Podemos list in Aragon, while Marta Abengochea will lead United Left's regional list.

In Aragon, United Left and Podemos have never run together in regional elections. In fact, Podemos was part of the PSOE government of Javier Lambán, along with the CHA and the PAR, from 2019 to 2023, while EU was in opposition. The CHA, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary this year, stated that they were willing to be part of a joint list, but only if the rest of the alternative left-wing parties were also on board.