This is Yolanda Díaz's project: "People want us to walk together."

MadridIt's been almost three years since Yolanda Díaz launched her political project, positioning herself as a leader of the left-wing PSOE following Pablo Iglesias's departure from the Spanish government. What began as a "citizens' movement," not about "acronyms or parties," has ended up becoming a conventional political party. Throughout this time, Sumar's journey has been marked by changes in its formulation in the face of the difficulties it has encountered in expanding its reach. The poor results in last year's regional and European elections, the tensions with the parties that ran under the Sumar banner in the June 23 general elections, and the Íñigo Errejón scandal have all been thorns in Díaz's side, forcing her to abandon the structure she proposed a year ago. The initial mass influx in July 2023, with 5,000 people at the Matadero cultural center, has now given way to a much more restrained pragmatism.

In fact, Díaz was not formally proclaimed the leader of Sumar at its second assembly, held this weekend in Madrid, which brought the project out of the provisional status it had been in for months—this meeting to finalize the process was supposed to take place in the fall, but was postponed due to the Errejón case. However, everyone assumes that she is, in practice, the leader and, despite her reluctance to announce it, she will emerge as the candidate in the next Spanish elections. Those attending the closing ceremony this Sunday at the Alcázar Theater in the center of the Spanish capital shouted "president" when Díaz took the stage. The second vice president of the Spanish government, aware of the negative impact of the division of power on her electoral prospects—marked by the rough turnaround with Podemos, which left the parliamentary group a few months after the June 23rd referendum—has called for "walking together" despite the "nuances" that exist between the parties. "It's what the people want," she insisted, looking ahead to the general elections scheduled for 2027. However, bridges with the purple party are broken, and Sumar sources admit that, beyond setting the horizon for unity, there are currently no contacts to achieve it.

So, without Díaz as number one, what is Sumar's position? The party's leadership will now be headed by Lara Hernández, who has served as organizational secretary in recent months, and by Carlos Martín, who has been its economic spokesperson. After Díaz resigned from her organizational positions in June, the vice president focused on her work in the Spanish government and avoided involvement in the day-to-day running of Sumar, which Hernández was already leading. In fact, Díaz did not even attend the first day of the assembly this Saturday, a practical one, in which the 500 Sumar delegates debated and voted on the political and organizational documents and the leadership candidacy. Díaz limited herself to delivering a speech at the close of business this Sunday. "We are here to move forward with Yolanda," the new co-coordinator of Sumar made clear, referring to the vice president's role as a public figure, although she is formally the third-in-command with the title of institutional and government action coordinator. "We must seriously change people's lives," said Díaz, who has set the goal of "relaunching the social agenda in the Spanish government." Among the content priorities Sumar has set is reducing the working week to 32 hours.

Coexistence with the rest of the parties

The preeminence that the second vice president of the Spanish government had granted herself over the rest of the parties in the June 23 coalition generated complaints of a lack of internal democracy, which have subsided in recent months as the formulation of Sumar has changed. Following the departure of Errejón, appointed spokesperson in the Lower House by Díaz, Izquierda Unida even suggested changing the name of the parliamentary group to avoid confusing the whole (the electoral alliance) with the part (the vice president's party). The Sumar Movement, which is "developing its wings" starting this Sunday, maintains the same name as the group as a whole, but acknowledges in its political statement that it is necessary to work with "procedures that respect the autonomy of the parties within the political space to reach stable convergence agreements, based on procedures that respect the autonomy of the parties involved." This includes Podemos.

While Sumar's initial organizational plan was to incorporate the remaining parties into its leadership (reserving 30% of the seats for them) and to be not a party but an umbrella for structuring this political space, this weekend's assembly confirmed the failure of this option. This was one of the arguments put forward by Elizabeth Duval, one of Díaz's star signings on June 23, when she announced, a week or so ago, that she was refusing to join the party's new leadership. In fact, among those attending Sunday's closing session, there were no leading figures from Más Madrid, Izquierda Unida, or Compromís. The only member of the cabinet present at the event, apart from Díaz, was Ernest Urtasun, who is not only the Minister of Culture but also the spokesperson for Sumar and a member of Comuns, which does maintain an active involvement in Sumar. In fact, Urtasun is number four on the approved list with 93% of the vote. Thus, Díaz's project now officially recognizes itself as another player in the amalgam of parties in the parliamentary group in Congress. However, Sumar sources emphasize that "in practice," its role will continue to be that of "coordinating" and "structuring the coalition."