Yolanda Díaz’s “country project” involves signing peace with Errejón for the 2023 elections

Yolanda Diaz she strips the daisy of her political future with her sights set on the next general elections in 2023. And she does so because her plans for the next few years do not necessarily have to coincide with those she had outlined for her Pablo Iglesias when he appointed her successor both in the Government – where she now occupies the same second vice presidency and, as such, the preferential dialogue of Podemos with Pedro Sanchez-, as in the next candidacy of the purple formation to the national elections.

In fact, Díaz had been privately assuring for some time that he has not decided if he will be the headliner of the coalition that they now lead Alberto Garzon (IU) y Ione Belarra (Podemos), colleagues at the table of the Council of Ministers as ministers of Consumption and Social Rights, respectively.

The second vice president expressed her doubts more clearly than ever in an interview last Friday on Spanish Television, where she said that “I thank former vice president Iglesias for his love, but I am not in these, it is a decision [la de ser candidata] that I am going to take it exclusively, that I am the only one who can take it. “

Next, Díaz affirmed that although he does not have exactly one candidacy in mind, he is “working”, he revealed, “for build a country project for the next decade“A somewhat ambiguous statement, within which he also alluded to starting” right away “a project” of listening “to various sectors and then” deciding what to do. ”

The second vice president did not mention specific political actors, but the process that she is initiating has among its objectives to rebuild a political space very damaged by, among other issues, the split of the same that at the beginning of 2019 starred Íñigo Errejón.

The Más Madrid project has twice been close to making Podemos disappear from the Madrid regional assembly, a threat that in part motivated Iglesias to run as a candidate in the elections on May 4. And although in the general elections it fell far short of expectations, the two seats of a group that is now the one that leads the opposition (ahead of the PSOE) in Madrid, both in autonomy and in the City Council of the capital, They represent a piece of information that obviously does not go unnoticed at the Podemos headquarters.

Sole Solvent Candidate

The Podemites are very clear that Díaz is the only candidate who can supply Iglesias with solvency and guarantees of, at least, maintaining their current representation in the Congress of Deputies, where together with the territorial confluences they add 35 seats, being the fourth force policy of the Spanish Parliament.

All this with the support of Belarra and the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, the two visible heads of the party, and the new batch of leaders who have assumed responsibilities after the last congress, the first of the post-Iglesias era. A campus in which names such as Isa Serra, the Secretary of State for Social Rights, Noelia Vera, or the MEP Idoia Villanueva.

But added to all that, they believe that it is time to sign peace with Errejón, and to share in some way a political space that they consider to be very consolidated. And for this they estimate that Díaz’s mood is the ideal one, after the time of fratricidal struggle between Iglesias and the current parliamentarian of Más País. They are willing to reach agreements for territories in the face of future electoral appointments, but trying to ensure that electoral marks do not overlap or get in the way.

Madrid, according to this approach, would clearly be the territory of Errejón, but in exchange the former number two of Podemos would have to avoid attending other smaller constituencies, where his mere presence could damage the sum of seats.

The calculations of those of Belarra are not trivial in the face of the next general elections for which there is still a long way to go (the halfway point of the legislature is now reached and the approval of another two General State Budgets would still be ahead) but that will be loom like a tight duel between blocks.

The latest polls point to the possibility that Pablo Casado could reach a majority of the Government with the support of Vox. But if that scenario does not occur, even for few seats, Sánchez would have the possibility of reissuing the investiture that he already achieved, in a very fair way, at the beginning of 2020, days before the pandemic.

But, ultimately, the story of the milkmaid could enter a serious crisis if finally Yolanda Díaz did not accept being the candidate. The second vice president does not rule out returning to her legal profession in the future, which she practiced before her political career.

Although very close to Iglesias for years, the head of the Labor portfolio has always set her own and independent profile within her political space, as evidenced by the fact that she is not even a member of Podemos … and not even of Izquierda Unida , to which she was linked for years and with which she held important responsibilities in Galician politics, becoming deputy mayor of Ferrol, the capital of her native province. In 2019 she decided to withdraw from the coalition, although she does remain an affiliate of the Communist Party of Spain.

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