Elections 23J | Indifference in the PSOE about the pact between Sumar and Podemos: “We to our own”

The Socialists admit that it is better for there to be unity but they persist in their intention to ignore Yolanda Díaz and ask that the progressive vote be concentrated in the PSOE

A few months ago, when the regional and municipal elections were still far away, in Ferraz and in the Government they were concerned about when the pact between summer y Can. Yolanda Díaz wanted it to be after 28M, as it has finally happened, but the Socialists did not see this delay as clear, nor did they see the launch of some generals without counting on the territorial ‘apparatus’ of the purple ones. They urged an agreement. Pedro Sánchez himself kept abreast of the conversations through Díaz and even former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero pressured her and Pablo Iglesias for her alliance to bear fruit.

The head of the Executive was convinced that it depended on what happened to the left of the PSOE to continue governing. As much as the PSOE maintained the type, if Díaz and Irene Montero presented themselves separately, it would be very uphill to continue in Moncloa. These were the calculations that the socialists made when they still believed that the result of 28M would be good and that they would not lose governments because we can hold on. The catastrophe of that Sunday, in which six communities were blown up, has opened their eyes. To the left of him there is nothing left standing and they have many doubts that Díaz can work a miracle in that space.

That is why the Socialists have been treating their partners with disdain since 28M and saying that the progressive vote should be concentrated in the PSOE. The agreement signed this Friday has been received with indifference. “We don’t care. We do our thing”, say government sources. They are obviously aware that it is better that they go together in terms of profitability in the distribution of seats.

But during these days they have not shown an iota of anxiety in case there would be an agreement or not. Yesterday, when he finally learned about the pact, there were not even evaluations. What happens to Díaz and to Podemos no longer matters to them. On the contrary, they have launched a takeover bid to attract their voters. “We will ask for the vote for the PSOE because we believe that we are the best way to stop the PPVOX”, they repeat. “I suppose they will not congratulate us for having made some excellent lists”, they assure about the final configuration of Sumar. They are, they stress, “another party or coalition”.

In the Executive they maintain that the PSOE “has to run in its lane” and that this is what it has been doing from the moment that Sánchez called the elections. “This is a war and we must move towards the front”, they affirm regarding the attitude of the Socialists towards 23J. “Nobody has been aware of Yolanda Díaz and what he does with Sumar”. “There is neither time nor desire to look there”.

Convinced that there will be a useful vote

The coldness with Díaz has been obvious in all the manifestations of socialist ministers who, clearly, demand broad support for the PSOE. “We aspire, of course, to all votes leftand also to other more focused positions, not only in the field of what Sumar can represent”, the government spokesperson and Minister of Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, defended this week on the RNE microphones.

The feeling that the Government with Podemos has been a drag is very widespread in the PSOE. They believe that this is what 28M has punished them, above the parliamentary agreements with ERC and Bildu. This has opened the internal debate on whether Sánchez should have been tougher with the purple ones. And, above all, if he was wrong by not kicking Irene Montero out of the Executive when the sentence reductions for sexual offenders -more than a thousand- and even releases began to be known and the Minister of Equality denied the reform of the law of the ‘only yes is yes’, which the PSOE brought forward in Congress with the votes of the PP. Throughout the legislature, the socialist ministers themselves have lamented that everything was “consented” to them.

But it is already past water. With decisive elections in just a month and a half, neither look to the sides nor much less backwards. In the PSOE they estimate that the debacle of Podemos on 28M, although Yolanda Díaz has finally launched the Sumar device, benefits them and that on 23J there will be a useful vote to stop a government of PP and Vox. And the thunderous noise around the agreement with Podemos in recent hours, they consider to underpin this belief.