If the left faces the electoral appointment of July 23 with any advantage compared to a right that leads all the polls, that is to have already resolved the equation of its own coexistence. PSOE and Sumar face the general elections with the lesson learned in 2019 based on an electoral repetition: the hypothetical progressive government that can come out of the polls next Sunday will, in any case, be a coalition one.
This is how both parties assume it and, in fact, their leaders proclaim it. “I will govern with Yolanda Díaz,” said Pedro Sánchez during a campaign rally last Sunday in Barcelona. “We will govern with the PSOE and we will do it better,” Yolanda Díaz also promised during an interview at the The country.
The strategy of both progressive formations coincides when proposing the future governability of the country as a block policy: either Pedro Sánchez and Yolanda Díaz will coexist in Moncloa, or Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal will. And from that comparison they try in the PSOE to make a lever for the mobilization of the left.
“I say it very clearly, as of July 23 I will govern with Yolanda Díaz’s party. On the other side, even if they are ashamed and do not say it, there can only be a Feijóo government with Abascal ”, Sánchez stressed at the rally on Sunday. Before, during his interview in ‘El Hormiguero’, he asked Pablo Motos not to compare both profiles. “I would not compare Yolanda Díaz with Santiago Abascal,” he told her.
Until reaching that point of express vindication of their government partner and vice president, the Socialists have come a long way since the electoral crash of May 28. Among the conclusions of that political disaster on Ferraz street, they pointed to the collapse in the polls on his left and the wear and tear on the central Executive due to the noise generated around coexistence with United We Can.
Once the dilemma surrounding Sumar’s candidacy was resolved and with the Yolanda Díaz pact closed with the group of political forces to the left of the PSOE including, despite the discrepancies, Podemos, Pedro Sánchez reactivated the public defense of the vice president and the coalition formula. “With Yolanda Díaz, a government can be easier and more functional because we have worked loyally these four years,” the president said in another interview in El País.
“We vindicate the Government but we look beyond”
Yolanda Díaz has vindicated the legacy of the coalition government on numerous occasions, among other reasons because her management at the head of the Ministry of Labor is one of her great political assets. The second vice president usually lists measures such as the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage, the labor reform or the unemployment benefit for domestic workers as major milestones of this legislature. And that defense of the coalition has a translation into the future. “We are going to govern with the PSOE and, furthermore, we are going to govern better,” said the leader of Sumar in a recent interview with El País.
But at the same time, in the coalition they disdain the idea that they are the same as the PSOE. “We vindicate the Government, but only we look beyond,” say Sumar sources, who criticize the Socialists for their lack of ambition throughout the legislature. Díaz usually recounts in rallies and interviews that, despite the fact that both Sánchez and his ministers now boast of raising the minimum wage, it was Nadia Calviño who resisted approving this measure for nine months.
Not only that. Díaz has denounced on several occasions that the housing law approved just a few months ago fell short and has in his program a proposal to regulate rents effectively. He has criticized the PSOE for refusing to implement measures to alleviate variable-rate mortgage payments or offer solutions to contain the rise in food prices, at a time when underlying inflation continues to skyrocket despite the drop in the general index.
This double game, a defense of a government with the Socialists but with criticism of its eventual partner, has set the tone for many of Díaz’s rallies during the campaign, but in some territories where Sumar perceives a greater leakage of Socialist votes to the abstention the minister has raised the reproaches. It happened in Andalusia, where in the team the coalition detects a drain on the PSOE that they want to make profitable. At a rally in Seville, the leader of Sumar spoke of a land “mistreated” by the socialist governments and now by that of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla.
“We are going to govern with the PSOE but a government is an orchestra and it is not the same who has the baton. It is not the same. The PSOE, if it goes alone, gets confused. The Minister of Finance said that the debate on extending retirement should be addressed: nothing should be addressed. The debate on dignified retirement must be addressed ”, said Sumar’s candidate Íñigo Errejón at a rally in Valencia. “It is very important that the left-wing voter knows that his vote is safe. Ours is not a lottery. We are going to govern, but if the Spaniards do not give us their confidence, Sumar is going to be in front of any government of the Popular Party”, he added this Monday in an interview with elDiario.es.
And that dichotomy will surely be seen in the debate this Wednesday in which, in the absence of Feijóo, Santiago Abascal will be left in the middle of the two leftist leaders. Díaz wants to take advantage of the appointment as a showcase so that citizens can learn about Sumar’s proposals “to improve people’s lives” and intends to demonstrate that “it is the best antidote to stop right-wing governments and for Abascal to continue in the opposition” . “If we are not very big, there is no progressive government in Spain,” the coalition leader usually repeats in her speeches. “Voting for Sumar is worth double: to be sure of winning rights, but also to have a progressive government,” she said at the start of the campaign in A Coruña.
