Echenique points out that it should be the vice president who steps forward and announces if she wants to be the candidate
There are already surveys and polls that had the bad results that could be obtained to the left of the PSOE in the next general elections if Podemos and Yolanda Díaz do not go hand in hand. And that idea is also permeating the very actors in the negotiation. The leader of Podemos, Pablo Echenique, has admitted this Thursday that unity with the second vice president of the Government is a necessary condition to revalidate the coalition government. Even so, he has left the ball in the court of the Minister of Labor and has said that she must be the one to step forward and decide if he wants to be the candidate and whose.
“It would be a serious mistake for someone to think that we would not go together,” said the spokesperson for Unidas Podemos in Congress in an interview on RNE. After months in which the tensions between the purples and Díaz have only grown, Echenique has made it clear that they will work to seek an understanding: “For us, the most important thing is unity, without a doubt.”
The truth is that neither Díaz nor the leaders of Podemos have dared to verbalize in public the possibility of attending the national elections separately, but in both sectors it is a possibility that has been contemplated in recent months. However, Echenique’s words, admitting that the failure to seek an alliance could cause the Government with the PSOE not to be reissued, make it clear that there is still a predisposition to the pact.
Asked if Díaz will head the list for the elections, Echenique has indicated that “the first one who has to say it is Yolanda”, because “she has not taken that step.” The vice president has been touring Spain since last summer to meet with civil society. “She is currently organizing her party and has not expressed herself in this direction. I think it would not be sensible for us to pronounce ourselves before the person herself says so,” Echenique stressed. It is expected that it will be in the coming weeks when Díaz announces his willingness to stand for election.