Montero and Rufián campaign against Sánchez: strike "against the Government" and the corruption of Ábalos, for being "close" to the president

Irene Montero and Gabriel Rufián do not want "a left subject to the Government", but rather "a PSOE Government subject to the left." That is why they have conceived 28-N as an electoral campaign against Pedro Sánchez, whom they blame for "a failed railway system", the "corruption" of Santos Cerdán, Koldo García and José Luis Ábalos and the rise in housing and food prices and job insecurity. The electoral alliance between Podemos and ERC appeared this Saturday in Madrid urging "paralyzing the country" and "filling the streets" in the general strike on the 11th against a "complicit government that, while it could have done, has done nothing."

Both dressed in yellow sweatshirts - "Esquerra yellow", they claim, although it is also the electoral color of Miriam González, of Democracia 21 -, the Podemos candidate for the Presidency of the Government and the ERC spokesperson in the Congress of Deputies have made their debut in the capital after the event they shared in Barcelona two Saturdays ago.

This meeting - without party logos beyond its "peace, home and work" and the "Irene" t-shirts that the public wore - was scheduled for the previous Saturday, but was postponed due to official mourning after the train accident in Urda (Toledo). Now they present themselves as "a brave republican alliance that is not going to resign itself to those who do nothing but make ends meet at the expense of the people."

The hand-in-hand intervention of Montero and Rufián comes with a program articulated around three concepts - "peace, home and work", a "return to the basics" - and an offensive against what they consider insufficient response from the Government to the essential problems of citizens. That is why they propose lowering the price of rents, prohibiting the purchase of homes for those who are not going to live there, creating a public supermarket to reduce the cost of food, raising the minimum wage to 1,800 euros or reducing working hours, among other measures.

"Vote what you feel"

His message is also a challenge to the Frente Amplio, the candidacy that brings together Sumar, IU, Más Madrid and Comuns, which Podemos and ERC reproach for its proximity to the PSOE. "We are the Front," Rufián insisted. Montero has turned this differentiation into one of the axes of his pre-campaign, rebelling against the "useful vote" on the left and in the polls and encouraging "voting what you want and feel", in a nod to the emotional that flees from the practical.

"They tell you: 'Don't do what you want, vote for the PSOE'. They tell you: 'We haven't done anything in four years, but, when the elections come, vote useful'. The PSOE, if it can, eats you, but we can't leave it. That's why they appeal to the useful vote, it's the PSOE's way of eating the vote to its left," Montero said.

"If we want the prices of rent, eggs and tomatoes to go down, and salaries to go up, and for our children not to go to war, there has to be a left that is not subjugated, that is not on the same ballot as the PSOE," he insisted, before citing the husband of Carmen de Santa Ana, an executive who died in the Urda accident, who attacked capitalism, and denouncing that "the health centers leave us without pediatricians, we They leave the public school without teachers and privatize the train, putting our lives at risk.

"Ayuso is the mafia"

Montero started with words against the PP - "Ayuso is the mafia", he said - and wanted to make it clear that "the PP and the PSOE are not the same." But she immediately found similarities between both parties and a list of things to blame Sánchez, whose cabinet she herself belonged to as Minister of Equality. He has said that "corruption in Spain is a form of Government" and has held the president himself responsible for what "Koldo, Ábalos or Santos Cerdán" did.

"Does anyone really want to make it believe that they picked up Ábalos's phone because of his pretty face? They picked up his phone because he was one of the ministers closest to the President of the Government and what he said had to be done," he pointed out.

He has also linked the PSOE with the rise in prices and has called for participation in the strike on the 11th so that "rents, food and energy can be lowered." "This strike is for the right to housing and also against those responsible for making housing and living prices impossible, and those responsible are the big companies and the big millionaires, but also the complicit governments that, while they could have done, have done nothing," he said, in clear reference to Pedro Sánchez's Executive.

"The PSOE has run out of rallies with music"

The ERC candidate for Barcelona, for his part, has cited Julio Anguita's words at a 2016 rally in which he called for "finding spaces for collaboration between the left" as a precedent for his alliance with Podemos. He has urged to have "a subjugated PSOE Government", because "this was not about replacing Yolanda Díaz, nor about changing the name of a space that already existed, nor about submitting to the PSOE by entering the PSOE, but rather about subduing the PSOE from sovereignism with the strength of the left as a driving force", in a clear criticism of the Frente Amplio.

Giving the Government one piece of advice, Rufián has assured that "part of the judicial, media and political power of this country are going after the woman and the president's brother, just as they went after us and imprisoned our people and the only ones we had on our side were Podemos", but he has also censored the corruption scandals surrounding the PSOE: "Santos Cerdán, Ábalos, Koldo... anyway. The left cannot steal. The PSOE has run out of money. rallies with music and t-shirts. A hundred or so deaths in a few months, a deceased railway system... Adif is a massive shell that distributes money to subcontractors that make maintenance precarious, so people take the risk," he summarized, before calling for a comprehensive review of the railway system.