Why Irene Montero wants to hold an event with Gabriel Rufián?

BarcelonaIn the survey by the Sociological Research Centre (CIS) last June, Gabriel Rufián first appeared as one of the names Spaniards considered as a candidate for the presidency of the State. The percentage was very low, 0.6%, but what was significant was that a leader of ERC, specifically the party's spokesperson in Congress, appeared in the predictions. The Rufián phenomenon has been growing over the months – in this March's survey the percentage had grown to 5.8% –, spurred on by his campaign for a left-wing front. All the sovereignist left-wing parties, starting with his own, ERC, turned their backs on him and the feeling was that Rufián was rowing against the current, even though he never tires of saying that what he defends is what he hears on the street and what the left has always been criticized for: lack of unity. And especially at a time of rising right and far-right. Sumar welcomed Rufián's proposal, but invited him to join the coalition that was already negotiating with Esquerra Unida, Comuns, and Més Madrid. A project in which Podemos, incidentally, is not involved. It is precisely for this reason that the person who has taken up Rufián's challenge is Irene Montero, the number two of the purple party.

Why does the MEP also agree to defend a left-wing front with Rufián and not with the platform that is the heir to Yolanda Díaz's Sumar? When the poster for April 9 was made public –

Irene Montero will share a stage with Gabriel Rufián in an event moderated by Xavier Domènech– Podemos defended the initiative to try to mobilize the left-wing electorate in the face of the rise of the far-right. They said they shared Rufián's "diagnosis" of trying to form a broad left-wing front, but left it unresolved whether all of this would end up leading to something more. "It remains to be seen," they pointed out from the purple party. The republican leader also did not want to go any further.

Podem has been critical of Sumar's role in the Spanish government, as it sees it as a crutch for the PSOE. Nevertheless, the good relationship between Montero and Rufián is well known. And Montero's enmity with Díaz and her circle is also known, due to Sumar's veto of the former Minister of Equality for the joint list of July 23., arran del veto de Sumar a l'exministra d'Igualtat per la llista conjunta del 23-J. The ERC spokesperson in Madrid has defended Montero several times and presented her as a good candidate to represent the left at the state level. The purple leader has now reciprocated by embracing her left-wing front when ERC turns its back on her.

However, Montero knows two things. That Gabriel Rufián is the person who, in the spontaneous CIS response to the question about who should be the Spanish president, is the best-valued left-wing leader in the State, ahead of Yolanda Díaz and herself. And that Podem can take advantage of the momentum Rufián has gained to try to remove those who removed her three years ago. That is to say, that Montero gains negotiating power thanks to the media strength of Rufián's proposal and in view of the scenario that the purples may end up negotiating a coalition at the state level, as they have ended up doing in Andalusia after two electoral defeats in Aragon and Castile and Leon. The unknown that will remain to be resolved is the role Rufián wants to play.

The details of the week