The minister who does not want to be president (nor candidate)

BarcelonaIt seems that Pablo Bustinduy (Madrid, 1983) is unaffected by siren songs. He has received many since he took the floor on Friday at the Congress of Deputies to defend the second of the housing decrees, the one most similar to the proposals of the Tenants' Union. These songs tell him to lead the candidacy of the Broad Front, the brand with which the heirs of Sumar are working for the elections. But the Minister of Social Rights discarded wearing that hat a long time ago. "I don't believe that is the role I should assume," he said in March. And the fact is that Friday's was not his only viral speech, due to its forcefulness and originality.

"The people have a memory," he told the deputies of the PP, Vox, and Junts, whom he accused of "defending the interest of the oligarchy and turning their backs on the people." "None of you is the person who is afraid of receiving an eviction notice, but today you will decide for them." He reminded the right-wing parties that they have "twice or three times as many tenant voters as landlords," that "they have no other homeland than money," and he focused on the Vox spokesperson, José María Figaredo, to define him as a "presumed economist, improvable orator, and exemplary little master." "You surely cannot reach more and I will not settle for less," he ended up dedicating to him.

A graduate in political science from the Complutense University of Madrid and in psychology from the UNED, he expanded his studies in France and the United States, where he began a career as a university professor, which opened the doors of New York –and Latin America– to Pablo Iglesias, when they were just beginning to promote Podemos. Bustinduy was a deputy between 2015 and 2019 and won the primaries to be head of the list for the European elections. But then came the split. Despite his good relationship with Iglesias, he had taken sides with Íñigo Errejón and resigned from the candidacy, even though Podemos maintained its confidence in him. He returned to being a professor and moved away from the fratricidal war of the left, but returned four years later at the hand of Yolanda Díaz, straight into the government. "A communist and idiot minister," is how Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary defines him, who dressed Bustinduy as a clown for a promotional campaign. "We have fined him [179 million euros for charging for suitcases] and they are not used to it," replied the minister, of whom O’Leary also recalled that he had "minister parents." Specifically, his mother, Ángeles Amador, who held the Health portfolio in the last government of Felipe González.