This afternoon Frente Amplio gathered just over a thousand people in the Parque Lineal del Manzanares in Madrid to kick off its pre-campaign for the general elections. A formal presentation, however, had an elephant in the room too big to ignore. That is why the coalition led by Ada Colau has wanted to turn the page from the first minute. “Not all of us are there, but there are 15 political organizations,” said deputy Tesh Sidi, alluding to the absence of Podemos after a negotiating failure on the left of the PSOE that has left open wounds in a space that has just 43 days to recover before the 29-N elections. “But the time to unite the parties is over, what we have to do is unite the people to stop the democratic involution that they want to bring to this country,” declared minutes later Emilio Delgado, the number 1 of the coalition for Madrid.
The meeting, planned for weeks, has served to encourage each other after the negotiating wear and tear, but also to vindicate the territorial breadth of a project that brings together, in addition to IU, Más Madrid, Comuns and Movimiento Sumar, groups such as Nueva Canarias, Chunta Aragonesista, Somos Asturies or Més per Mallorca.
Ada Colau wanted to close the chapter on negotiations with Podemos and focus her speech on the candidacy she has managed to bring together. “Up until the last minute, everything was offered with extreme generosity, but if someone does not want to sit at a table, you cannot force them,” he stated. The Frente Amplio candidate assured that it was the last time she would speak of acronyms and has claimed the cohesion of the 15 organizations that make up the project. "We are here because we know who we are and, above all, who our adversaries are. We have ahead of us a battle against fascism that we cannot lose," he proclaimed. "We will give everything and more. We will not fail. We will make the impossible possible together," he concluded.
Pablo Bustinduy has also appealed to mobilization to face the final stretch until the elections. "We have 43 days, with our heads held high, our principles intact. Here we have never been confused about loyalties or adversaries," he concluded. A message that has summarized the coalition's will to leave the disagreement with Podemos behind and focus its efforts on the pre-campaign.
Trying to settle a debate that will haunt it for a long time, the Frente Amplio has tried to focus the start of the pre-campaign on the issues on which it wants to build its candidacy. Housing and pensions have occupied a central place in the speeches, along with the defense of civil rights such as abortion and equal marriage, which the coalition leaders have contrasted with “the threats from the right to cut back.” The objective has been to present a project with its own profile and a recognizable social agenda, beyond the disputes that have prevented Podemos from incorporating.
Housing has also had its own face in the intervention of Sidi, who has resorted to the case of Maricarmen, converted into a symbol of the fight against evictions, to question the discourse of sacrifice that the right has already introduced that it will demand of the working population if it reaches La Moncloa. "Sacrifice? Didn't Maricarmen sacrifice herself to pay the rent and it ended up costing her her life?" he asked. The representative has contrasted this requirement with the situation of those who accumulate wealth and business profits. “Sacrifice is asked of the working class, but not of the penthouse collector like Ayuso, of the large energy companies or the technology companies,” he stated.
Pensions have been the other great social axis of the day. Frente Amplio has criticized the doubts that the PP has spread about the future of the public system and has warned of the consequences that, in its opinion, the popular party's policies would have for workers and pensioners. Coalition leaders have expanded their criticism of the right's position on abortion and marriage equality, in an attempt to link the defense of social rights with that of civil liberties.
The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, has defended a major tax reform and has announced that the Government will continue to increase the minimum wage even before the general elections on November 29. "That's why we want to be in the Government, to discipline the employers. We are going to continue raising the minimum wage and we are going to do it before the elections," he stated, vindicating the work of Yolanda Díaz at the head of the Ministry of Labor. Urtasun has also responded to the criticism of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who has defined Frente Amplio as a “coalition of the desperate.” The minister has returned the reproach to the PP leader and has maintained that the person who is desperate to follow the path set by Vox and remain in the opposition for another four years is Feijóo himself.
The staging has sought to reinforce the image of unity that the coalition wants to project. The leaders entered the open-air auditorium of the Parque Lineal del Manzanares to the rhythm of “Revolución”, Amaral's song. Together with Ada Colau, candidate for the Presidency of the Frente Amplio Government, and Emilio Delgado, head of the list for Madrid, the Minister of Social Rights, Consumption and Agenda 2030, Pablo Bustinduy, participated; the deputy of Izquierda Unida, Toni Valero; the co-coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, Verónica Martínez Barbero, and the spokesperson for Chunta Aragonesista in the Cortes of Aragón, Jorge Pueyo.
