The movement of the Commons to block Podemos in Congress

BarcelonaMore than a year and a half after running together in the general elections, relations between Sumar and Podemos remain broken. With the Spanish legislature entering uncharted territory, the second vice-president and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, is intensifying calls to rebuild bridges at a time when polls predict a collapse of its political space. Even so, the purple party continues to mark distances with its former partners, whom it accuses of being too soft on the PSOE.

Relations became strained at the end of January with the move by the Commons to block Podemos from having one more deputy in Congress. Despite having no ties to Catalonia, the former secretary of organisation of Podemos, Lilith Verstrynge, had presented herself as number 4 for Barcelona to secure the seat, the result of coalition pacts with Sumar. But the lilacs lost the seat when Verstrynge resigned shortly after having won it, which opened the door to Congress for Candela López, from the Comuns. In October, coinciding with the party assembly, López also announced that she would leave the seat so as not to accumulate positions. But, in the meantime, Gala Pin left the seat for personal reasons in January, which made the Comuns and Sumar change their plans.

Gala Pin was replaced by Viviane Ogou, but if López also leaves the seat, it will go to María Pozuelo (Podemos). Sources from the Comuns explain to ARA that when Pin announced that she was leaving and, therefore, the list was moving towards someone from Podemos, López proposed to the leadership of the Comuns what she should do. The executive endorsed en masse that she should keep the seat, according to the sources consulted. Her argument is that Sumar cannot allow a single seat to be lost at a time when the Spanish government is constantly balancing to get its programme through, under pressure from ERC and Junts. And the fact is that in Congress, Sumar and Podemos do not share a parliamentary group because they split up after the elections.

There is, however, a problem: the code of ethics of the Commons does not allow its leaders to have more than one institutional position. López has three: she is a deputy, a councillor in Castelldefels and vice-president of the Barcelona Provincial Council – although these two positions go together, an accumulation that the code does allow. Before the assembly, sources close to her and the leadership had already assured that she would give up some of these responsibilities to comply with the code and focus on the party, given that one of the complaints of the membership in the congress was the Lack of presence of the cadres in the territory and lack of listening at the bases. Recently, the former mayor of El Prat Lluís Mijoler also left the council and remained only as a deputy, complying with the code of ethics.

Open war in Sant Boi

The dispute in Congress adds to the poor state of relations between the Comuns and Podemos in Catalonia, the result of several clashes at municipal level. After a falling out in Sant Joan Despí, another crisis has broken the coalition in Sant Boi de Llobregat. The Comuns expelled the Podemos councillor Cristina Serna from the group, accusing her of a lack of professionalism and even of having made "improper use of public money". She denies this. Podemos sources consulted by ARA regret these accusations and assure that their former partners never made these complaints to them before everything broke out. They also point out that the expenses that the Comuns are now questioning – for example, work breakfasts or transport – passed all transparency controls.

At the time of making the expulsion public, the Comuns alluded to the impossibility of "political coexistence" between both forces, and it was not until days later that they made public a statement in which they pointed out the alleged lack of transparency and unethical behavior. We can reproach that they have gone so far as to accuse Serna of things such as "extending the weekends to three days" or passing undue expenses for which they cancelled his bank card, and maintains that a political solution must be found to this conflict to avoid it ending up in court.

The purple party considers that this decision is part of the Comuns' will to corner them where they have asserted more forceful positions; specifically, against the PSC, with whom they govern in Sant Boi. In Esplugues, according to party sources, they are also blocking the entry of a Podemos councillor who would be due to enter the council midway through the term.

With all this bad weather in the background, is a reconciliation between the Comuns and Podemos possible? Several sources from the Comuns consulted by ARA consider that, if it is the case, it will depend on the decision that the purple party will take in Madrid, after the assembly planned for April and in which Ione Belarra has already presented her candidacy. Now, Podemos Catalunya is in the hands of a management team.

Sources from the leadership of Catalunya En Comú stress that there is a "predisposition" to talk and, in addition, they assume that at some point it will be necessary to articulate "a competitive political space" to the left of the PSOE to avoid a government of the PP and Vox (or at least try to). In any case, they frame local conflicts in the dynamics of each municipality and deny that there is any political directive from the state leadership.