This is a very polarized campaign, but the two big parties are not the only ones playing the game. Who comes in third or fourth place also counts. The parties to the left of the PSOE have shown their inability to forge a single list that makes the current electoral formula profitable, while on the right they are much clearer.
The failure of the so-called Frente Amplio (IU, Comuns, Sumar, Más Madrid) and Podemos to participate in the elections with a single ballot relatively worries the PSOE. In five communities (Valencia, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands, Aragon and Navarra) there has been unity and in the cases of Madrid and Catalonia the effects of the division are less harmful to the left. In the rest, the PSOE hopes to receive the fruits of the useful vote. What the left has lost along the way has been the opportunity to inspire enthusiasm in its electorate and mobilize it.
Ada Colau, candidate of the Frente Amplio, called Irene Montero on Friday around seven in the afternoon to make a last attempt at unity, offering her a relevant position in Madrid (the second after Emilio Delgado, from Más Madrid), but Podemos remained firm in limiting the agreements to the aforementioned autonomies. The purple formation wants to continue maintaining its distance. In fact, they were the ones who decided to separate after the 2023 elections. But the truth is that the movement is very risky for their survival.
This week Montero suffered a show of detachment from his bases. Only 24,000 followers voted for her as a candidate in open online primaries, a lower number than the number that supported Ione Belarra as general secretary (internal primaries) a year ago, without any electoral atmosphere. Although they are not comparable situations, it is worth remembering that in the last Madrid regional elections the Podemos-IU candidate obtained 158,000 votes and failed to enter the Assembly. Montero won't need as many, but it won't be easy for him. The most visible face of Podemos may end up diluted in the Mixed Group of Congress (in which Podemos today has four seats). It seems that the purple ones trust that the sponsorship of Gabriel Rufián will save them the ballot.
ERC defends the arrangement with Podemos by which the purple ones include two candidates on the Republican lists (one with options to leave) and Rufián campaigns alongside Montero. It has been a way to bridge the increasingly greater distance between the party and its candidate. The future is impossible to predict, but these elections could mark a turning point for the viability of Podemos, or at least its current leadership, as well as a possible fork in the paths of ERC and Rufián. It is not very sustainable over time for the highest representative of a party in Congress to attack “the leadership” of which he is a part and confess that he has been on the verge of slamming the door on his party.
All these issues have left a more relevant agreement in the background, that of the Frente Amplio and the PSOE in the Senate. In its day, a similar attempt by Joaquín Almunia and Francisco Frutos failed, but it is true that it was made in very different circumstances, after that “tweak” between the PP and IU against Felipe González. A single left-wing ballot for the Upper House was the only way to compete to snatch the absolute majority in the Senate from the PP, which is decisive when deciding appointments of the General Council of the Judiciary and the Constitutional Court, which have been so decisive in this legislature, in addition to being necessary for possible constitutional changes.
It is a relative counterweight to an eventual absolute majority of the right in Congress, but its importance for the future also lies in the fact that it can serve as a seed to grease the relationship of the socialists with the parties to their left.
The proof of the relevance of this left-wing alliance in the Senate is that yesterday Alberto Núñez Feijóo immediately reacted by disqualifying the agreement and, even more significantly, Santiago Abascal hinted that Vox could make decisions in the coming days, which could be not presenting to the Senate for some provinces for the benefit of the PP, to prevent the progressive majority in that Chamber "High vision", allege those of Abascal.
Gone are the times when Pablo Casado told Vox in Congress or Feijóo distanced himself from Abascal. Also left behind are the clashes in the different communities that led to the departure of the extreme right formation from the autonomous governments. The PP and Vox have not fought in public or stepped on the electoral hose for a long time. Now, in addition, Abascal could be willing to sacrifice pawns for the sake of a resounding majority.
