Belarra asks Sumar to negotiate "next week" to include Irene Montero in the lists: "The veto must be lifted"

Podemos is not resigned to letting its Minister of Equality fall. The party’s general secretary, Ione Belarra, has sent a letter to those registered after signing the electoral coalition this Friday afternoon, the last day for registration. In that document, which has been entering the electronic mailboxes of supporters throughout the night, Belarra announces that they will continue to insist on the incorporation of Irene Montero on the lists, whom Sumar has excluded during the negotiations. And she affirms: “She has threatened us that, if we do not accept these conditions, we would be excluded from the electoral coalition.”

“Throughout the afternoon, Yolanda Díaz’s negotiating team has conveyed to us both the refusal to lift Irene’s veto, and the irrevocable decision to maintain the last offer sent yesterday,” Belarra explains: “It He has threatened us that, if we do not accept these conditions, we would be excluded from the electoral coalition, as has already happened in Andalusia. This is a decision that cannot be reversed later. For this reason, the Coordination Council has agreed this afternoon to sign the electoral coalition with Sumar without an agreement, reiterate that the veto against Irene Montero is a mistake and must be lifted, as well as urge Yolanda Díaz’s team to continue negotiating during the next week until the presentation of the lists.

“At Podemos we are very clear about what our country is at stake on July 23, the real possibility that the PP and Vox coalition will govern and also the opportunity to revalidate the coalition government and continue to deepen the social and feminist transformations it is making. a few years seemed impossible”, says the general secretary of Podemos: “As you know, we have spent a long time trying to reach a coalition agreement between Podemos and Sumar to present a single candidacy for these general elections”.

The general secretary of Podemos states that the party executive had decided: “Inform Sumar’s negotiating team that Podemos does not accept the veto of our colleague Irene Montero to participate in the team that will run in the next general elections on July 23. We think that not including Irene, the Minister of Equality who has taken feminist advances in our country further than anyone before, is not only an unfair decision, but also a political and electoral error”.

“Once again Podemos is being asked to renounce its main electoral asset,” says Ione Belarra, alluding to when Pedro Sánchez asked Pablo Iglesias to renounce entering the Government in the summer of 2019, which he did at the time. Leader of Podemos “In addition, the electoral unity agreement between Podemos and Sumar must be, from our point of view, fair and ensure our representation in the Congress of Deputies.”

At this point, Podemos considers that the distribution of seats, of which 8 would correspond to it, is made with projections of repeating the results of 2019, something that is questioned in the party.

absences and presences

Podemos will have 15 places on the lists, of which 8 could be assured if the result of 23J is similar to that obtained in November 2019. These 8 would be: leading Navarra (Idoia Villanueva), Gipuzkoa (Pilar Garrido), Araba (Roberto Uriarte), Cádiz, Murcia (Javier Sánchez Serna) and Las Palmas (Noemí Santana), number five for Madrid (Ione Belarra) and number four for Barcelona (Lilith Verstrynge). In none of these positions is Irene Montero, Minister of Equality, excluded during the negotiations with Sumar.

In addition, Podemos obtains another 7 positions that require a better electoral result than that of four years ago to become seats: 1 for Ávila; 1 for Badajoz; 1 for Cáceres; 1 for Granada (Martina Velarde); 1 for Guadalajara; 1 for Palencia; 1 for Segovia; and 1 for Teruel.

In addition to Montero, the parliamentary spokesman for Unidas Podemos, Pablo Echenique, is not on the list of names signed between Podemos and Sumar for the general elections. Nor will the Government delegate for Gender Violence, Vicky Rosell, go on the lists.