Just two days after demonstrating its weight in Congress by saving the government’s tax reform, Podemos feels free from the burdens and is already looking towards 2025. More precisely, towards the negotiation of the general state budgets in which they will once again be essential and for those who, they say, no vote is given.
The general secretary of the purples, Ione Belarra, insisted this Saturday at the State Citizens’ Council that the four seats of Podemos in Congress “are as necessary to the majority as the [siete] of Junts”. This refers to the fact that post-convergents tend to use it as an excuse to justify the lack of a majority among government partners.
So, Belarra believes the impending budget negotiations will be a reflection of what happened this week with tax reform. In other words, the PSOE “will prefer to seek the voices of the right first” and then let the left partners (Podemos, ERC, Bildu and BNG) join the pact, exactly as happened this week.
The problem with the budgets is that about a month ago the purple militancy put a price on its four MPs and demanded to condition support for the public accounts on several requirements: reduction in rents by 40% by law; sever relations with Israel and prohibit the sale of houses to those who will not live there. And none of them have changed.
The last time this issue was raised, sources within the socialist leadership insisted that with such strict conditions it would be impossible to obtain a majority of votes in Congress. Basically, because Junts would never accept them.
However, in Podemos they believe that the mantra that they are out of control is false. The same Thursday, after the vote on tax reform, several members of the purple leadership pointed out that this negotiation was a clear example that “Together moves“. “It’s a lie that they are out of control. The PSOE says it to justify things it does not want to do, but it is not immune to pressure,” they reflected.
It is particularly annoying among the purples, because they consider that the PSOE never advances and that this makes it more difficult to reach agreements between everyone.
Returning to Belarra, the deputy criticized the fact that Podemos is still the partner subject to “all media and political pressures”, instead of others like Esquerra, Bildu or Junts itself. Since leaving Sumar’s parliamentary group a year ago, their four congressional votes have repeatedly been the most costly to equalize.
“Today [al contrario que en la legislatura pasada] to have a comfortable government for the PSOEin which only Sánchez governs and who is incapable not only of undertaking green and feminist transformations… but also of proposing them”, criticized the former Minister of Social Rights. “A PSOE government, without Podemos, is a government conservative,” he said. condemned.
The conditions
One of the last times Belarra appeared from the Podemos headquarters was precisely to announce the consultation of its activists on the price to be put on the General state budgets. The bases then voted to condition their vote on breaking with Israel and intervening in real estate prices.
The question supported by those registered was: “Do you agree that Podemos agrees with the government to act against the genocidal state of Israel and end the housing crisis to vote in favor of general budgets? A 89% of 38,324 participants voted in favor.
The wording of the question, however, opens the door to abstention if necessary.
Apart from that, the conditions of the purples are clear: “That the government immediately sever relations commercial and diplomatic with the genocidal State of Israel, including a complete arms embargo. That the rental price be reduced by 40% by law and prohibit the purchase of housing in Spain other than to reside, in addition to immediately dismantling squad commandos like Desokupa”.
“Now the votes of Podemos will be decisive and, if the PSOE wants them, it will have to accept these two conditions,” declared then the secretary of the Organization of the Purples, Pablo Fernández, comparing their demands to “the law of amnesty” accepted. with Junts and ERC in Congress.
