Yolanda Díaz announced her resignation as head of Sumar this Monday, a few minutes after three in the afternoon. At that time, Izquierda Unida leaders were preparing for their first meeting after the federal assembly in May, in which they planned to address the situation after the results of the European elections. If the decision of the second vice-president of the government surprised them, a few hours later, its general coordinator, Antonio Maíllo, was already defending at the microphones of Cadena Ser a roadmap for the new era of the transformative left.
“Sumar is outdone as a unifying project,” he said, using a conciliatory tone but content that calls into question much of the work Yolanda Díaz and her team have done in recent months to lead the left confederal. “The objectives that we had have not been achieved, even remotely,” he criticized after deploring that in just ten years the political space as a whole had fallen from 18% to 8% of the votes. .
Maíllo presented in Hora 25 his theses on the path that the confederal space should follow after the departure of Yolanda Díaz: “We are entering a new stage in which the organizations will have the main role”. In summary, the leader of the IU proposes that it is now the political parties, his from the point of view of the State and the comuns or Más Madrid of their territories, which must promote a coalition which may or may not be called Sumar but in which Movimiento Sumar, the formation of Yolanda Díaz, must be another political force.
Maíllo’s words came just hours after this announcement and before the rest of the parties that are part of Sumar, not even the Sumar Movement itself, had practically had time to carefully analyze not only the consequences of the resignation of Díaz, but also the situation in which the entire political space and the coalition remain after Sunday’s results.
The debate in Izquierda Unida took place this Monday in a long meeting of more than five hours in which the organization established that the stage that had taken place until now was completed. There will be no Sumar leadership with 30% reserved for parties nor shared structures, the model which was designed from the founding assembly of the project last March and only after the results of the European elections and the resignation of Yolanda Díaz, they understand in the organization, is no longer valid.
Between Monday and Tuesday, the different parties that are part of either the parliamentary coalition or the organic process initiated by Sumar, also held leadership meetings to analyze the stage that is opening. Most of these forces agree on the diagnosis that the days of Yolanda Díaz’s program as a hegemonic subject within the coalition are over and that a space is needed in which political forces can agree on a much more horizontal relationship.
Más Madrid shared this Tuesday a document with activism in which it calls on the rest of the parties to convene what they called a “Coalition Table”, that is, a meeting in which all parties are present who are part of it. the parliamentary alliance.
“Bilateral relations between political parties will remain necessary, but it is time to think and act together. This is why, from Más Madrid, we call for the convening of a Coalition Table: the space in which political movements and organizations sit down to debate and define from autonomy and horizontality the meaning and “direction of our cooperation and collaboration.”, proposed the training.
In a press release published this Monday, Verdes Equo boasted of having placed “the project above interests” during these European elections, despite “not having a starting position and not being able to participate to the main strategic decisions of the campaign”, the results of which, they conclude, did not go as planned.
Faced with these poor results, Verdes Equo “decided to begin a process of reflection on its role in Sumar and on the future of the green political space in Spain, which will culminate with its Federal Assembly in October. According to the party, it is essential to change course to strengthen the eco-social political project in Spain,” they said in a statement.
A similar idea was conveyed by the Andalusian Popular Initiative, which in a statement recognizes that Yolanda Díaz’s decision “is generous and responsible” and hopes that “the renewed organization of Sumar” will be “an adequate space” to move forward in the federal level. . and plurinational and “to organize the response that the Andalusian left will have to give in the times to come”.
Sumar opens a dialogue process with the parties
At Movimiento Sumar, in the meantime, they agreed to open a process of dialogue with the parties to reorient and strengthen the political project in the face of the departure of Yolanda Díaz. In the training, they recognize that these conversations will be slow and deliberate, far from the rhythms of press conferences, as recognized this Tuesday by Íñigo Errejón, spokesperson for the coalition in Congress.
“The time that is opening is a time where conversations will take place at a different pace. From the awareness of everything we have accomplished by walking together and the awareness that this is the direction in which to continue to push the government,” he said, when asked about the stage that opens after the resignation of Díaz as general coordinator of Sumar.
At a press conference in Congress, journalists also asked him about the end of the Sumar era as a unifying movement predicted by Maíllo. Errejón asked that, in this new moment, “conversations and dialogues” be done “in a fraternal way.” “And sometimes it’s not with microphones in front,” he said. “We will continue our journey together. This force will continue, that’s why they voted for us,” he defended.
Sumar will hold a first management meeting on Tuesday to define the next steps, but the organization maintains that no major decisions are yet expected from this meeting and insists that the process will still be long. It is not a question of replacing any leadership because, they affirm, Yolanda Díaz will continue to lead the government and the parliamentary group in which all parties are represented. “Yolanda is our best political and electoral asset,” Errejón responded on Tuesday to the question of whether the minister could run again as a candidate in hypothetical general elections.
From Geneva, where she participated in the International Confederation of Labor, the vice-president assured in statements to the press that she would not leave. “When there are bad electoral results, we must take responsibility. I’m not leaving, I’m staying within Sumar and now Sumar is going to give a calm debate which starts on Thursday. “We are doing this to win the general election,” he said.
The questions that arise now revolve around how the confederal space will combine Díaz’s leadership within the government, his decisions on political direction, strategy or clashes with the Socialist Party, with this will of the parties to have much more weight. weight in the new configuration of the coalition.
Izquierda Unida and Más Madrid have already made their diagnosis on the failed strategies that led to this point and, within Maíllo’s party, they believe that if Sumar’s theses sought to unify the left and expand the space, the tools must now be different. It will no longer be, they predict, a space where one party tells others what to do. If Yolanda Díaz can run again as a candidate in the general elections, they think, it will be good news because the government will have functioned well and will have the capacity to win primaries open to all political party activism.
