Yolanda Díaz tries to iron out the rough edges with Podemos to strengthen her project

One of the objectives is to coordinate the position of the confederal group within the coalition government in the face of the clashes with the PSOE due to the increase in defense spending that United We Can not share and to agree on the measures that will be required of the majority partner in the negotiations for the new Budgets, which will mark the ideological course of the last year of the legislature. But Díaz has also wanted to explain to the parties that support her what ‘Sumar’ will consist of, the process of listening to citizens that starts this Friday, at 7:30 p.m., at the Matadero in Madrid. The vice president’s team insists that it will be after that listening when Díaz will decide if she will present herself to the next general elections.

The head of Labor has always defended that in her political project the “protagonism” must be of the “citizenship” and not of the parties, a premise that has generated discomfort mainly in Podemos, the force to the left of the PSOE with greater representative weight. and with more territorial implantation. With this objective, Podemos, IU, En Comú Podem or Más País will have a presence at this Friday’s event, but their top leaders will not attend, a decision that the different parties explain with different arguments.

Belarra, the spokesperson for the confederal group in Congress and leader of Podemos, Pablo Echenique, and the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, have assured in recent days that they will not go to the first act of ‘Sumar’ because Díaz has requested it. . The team of this, IU and More Country point out, instead, that there have been different meetings of the vice president with those parties and that it was in those meetings that the format in which there will be presence of the political formations was decided but not of its top leaders, although there will be territorial leaders.

The presence of the parties

The controversy arose on Wednesday, mainly after Belarra revealed that he was not going to attend the ‘Sumar’ event at the request of Díaz. “We have been asked not to go, we are going to respect it but we will be there, of course, contributing to the growth and unity of the space,” said the leader of Podemos in a TV interview. Echenique spoke in similar terms, although she recognized that she was not going to go to give “prominence to the citizenry” as the vice president intends. “On this occasion he has explicitly asked us not to go after her and we have done so confirming it with her. You have to respect her decisions, ”said Irene Montero on her part this Thursday.

On Wednesday, Diaz denied that due to the fact that her main leaders did not attend, she had vetoed the parties that support her in the coming-out of ‘Sumar’. “It is not true that I have said that not all the games are there. I make an appeal for all its people to be here. I have talked about all the games and they are all included. We fit all those who want a better country”, said the vice president during an institutional visit to Rome.

Sources from the Podemos leadership consulted by this newspaper have not been able to specify who the militants will be that they will send to this Friday’s event. Nor have they given names Más País, Compromís and En Comú Podem. On the part of the federal direction of IU they have specified that their spokesperson, Sira Rego, and the leader of the PCE and Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, Enrique Santiago, as well as the Minister of Transparency of the Generalitat Valenciana, will be at the event. Rose Perez.

This Friday’s event will consist of a first conversation between Díaz and different groups and citizen representatives. It will be the beginning of a six-month journey that will take the Vice President to hold open meetings with other representatives of civil society throughout Spain. Once this listening process is over, at the end of the year the also Minister of Labor will announce if she finally attends the general elections and under what conditions she tries to reach Moncloa.

Díaz: “It will be a day of joy and celebration”

This Thursday, Díaz has published a recording calling citizens to participate in the first act of ‘Sumar’. “I want to invite all of you. Tomorrow will be a day of joy and celebration. After the act we can be together. So if you dare, tomorrow, all together in Matadero, at 7:30 p.m.”, Díaz assured. The platform has also presented its website this Thursday www.sumarfuturo.info.

The vice president announced ‘Sumar’ in the pre-campaign for the Andalusian elections on June 19. And she also assured there, in Andalusia, that she was willing to “take a step to win Spain”. Her team insists, however, that this does not mean that she has already made the decision to present herself as a candidate for the presidency of the Government, but simply reflects her “illusion” of her for the listening process that It starts this Friday.

In May, the vice president’s team registered the statutes of ‘Sumar’ -constituted as an association-, which set out the goals and activities of the platform that will seek a “new democratic contract” with the citizenry and that intends to “think of common that project of country that renews the hope” of the Spaniards. Her team insists that ‘Add’ is not the definitive electoral brand. And in that the hypothetical candidacy of Díaz would come out of the process that is now opening and will be a consequence of it.

The document that appears in Interior establishes that the association has among its purposes “to promote democratic commitment and the participation of citizens in public life”, as well as “to encourage and strengthen citizen and civil society participation to improve the quality of democracy and human development”. In addition to “contributing to the development of critical thinking”, ‘Sumar’ aims to “encourage study, research, reflection and debate on the main social, economic and political problems”.

One of the main objectives of the association is also “to seek the link with social movements, citizens and other entities of civil society.” Likewise, it tries to “contribute to the consolidation of networks for the exchange of experiences and knowledge in the field of democratic participation”.