Martha Lois will be the candidate Add to the Presidency of the Xunta in the regional elections of February 18. The political party promoted by the Vice President of the Government Yolanda Díaz is thus betting on the president of the party and one of her faithful collaborators, thus returning to what months ago was her first choice.
Díaz goes to Galicia this Wednesday to present a candidacy that will later be endorsed by the coordinator of the formation and that was decided in the last hours, after the obligation to shorten the process motivated by the electoral advance decided by the president of the Xunta, Alfonso Rueda, although all parties assumed that the call to the polls would not go beyond mid-March.
The bet on Lois, who was deputy mayor in Santiago under the government of Martino Noriega with the Compostela Aberta tide, responds to several causes. The first of them derives from the rejection of other possible candidates, such as the former minister of the bipartisan Teresa Táboas, who refused to join the project months ago, or that of Martiño Noriega himself, whose party, the Anova founded by Xosé Manuel Beiras, closed the door to a possible coalition.
Faced with this panorama and with the times on its heels, Sumar decided to bet on what was Yolanda Díaz’s first option months ago, although Lois’s choice generates several problems.
The first of them is that it would force Manuel Lago, one of Díaz’s main collaborators in the Ministry of Labor to sacrifice himself and relieve Lois in Congress if she “emigrates” to the Galician Parliament, although her inauguration would take place after the elections and when the Chamber was constituted. If Lago does not take that step, the Congress list would run and allow the leader of Podemos in Galicia, Borja San Ramón, to access a seat, something unthinkable because it would be giving a seat to the purples, who broke with Sumar’s group and left to the mixed.
Precisely that reason eliminated the other Sumar representative elected in Galicia from the equation, Veronica Martinezsince the number two on the Pontevedra list and her possible replacement is also part of Podemos.
Lois’s departure would also force Díaz to elect a new spokesperson in a Congress where he has lost the five Podemos deputies and each negotiation seems more difficult.
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Once the candidacy is unlocked, Sumar must reveal its alliances and seal coalitions before January 5. The only option on the table is Esquerda Unida, after the no to Podemos, although a last-minute change of script is not ruled out.
Podemos, for its part, is also advancing in primaries that will close this week. At least two lists will compete to win the candidacy for the Presidency of the Xunta: one of them is promoted by the Galician leadership, in the hands of Borja San Ramón – the favorite to run for the position –, and the other, by the Rexurdir collective, who already lost to the first in the consultation to achieve the helm of the formation.