More changes for Add in the Congress of Deputies. After suffering the loss of the five Podemos deputies who joined the Mixed Group in December, Yolanda Diaz is now forced to do more draft changes in the group. The parliamentary leadership It will have to be recomposed in the coming weeks, after the departure of the current spokesperson, Marta Lois, who will leave the seat to focus on the Galician elections and the second vice president will have to choose a new profile that will give voice to the project.
Lois, who was Díaz’s great bet to represent Add, He will leave office four months after taking office in Parliament, where she was received with great misgivings due to her inexperience as a spokesperson, but who ended up becoming a fundamental piece to maintain balance between the parties that make up the coalition -Más Madrid, IU, Compromís, Mès or Chunta, in addition to Sumar-.
His first interventions on the platform of the Hemicycle were received coldly among his own ranks, where They questioned the suitability of the Galician exedil for the position, which requires a certain background in terms of public appearances. But his conciliatory profile and his ability to calm tempers behind closed doors positioned him as a figure of consensus within the complexity of the parliamentary group.
Díaz herself was the one who confirmed this Wednesday that Marta Lois will leave Congress to face the campaign, after designating her as a candidate for the February 18 elections. “Marta Lois will resign from her seat“, assured RNE Díaz, who specified that he would do it before the election campaign, which begins on February 2. The resignation, therefore, will take place in less than a month.
Lois Resistance
In the first moment, Lois resisted being the candidatebut the refusal of different figures to head the electoral list – such as the former BNG councilor Teresa Taboas or the former mayor of Santiago de Compostela, Martino Noriega-, together with the request of Díaz herself, forced the jump to the Galician arena.
This leap does not have a clear destination: the polls do not ensure that Sumar will win a seat in the Galician Parliament. This circumstance had opened the possibility of her combining his seat with the campaign, to avoid losing the record without having secured a regional seat. This is what happened in the last Galician elections of 2020, when the Podemos candidate, Antón Gómez Reino, maintained his seat in Congress, where he remained after failing to win any seats.
In Sumar they now seek to reverse the mood of the progressive electorate and They raise a parallel with the last general elections, where the victory of the PP was taken for granted and a coalition government could finally be formed. In Galicia, the most optimistic polls grant a seat to Yolanda Diaz and they agree in granting an absolute majority to the popular ones. If the PP obtained a simple majority, the rest of the forces could ally for a coalition government, as is happening at the national level and given Vox’s few options to become a deputy on 18F. A situation that, they defend in Sumar, could also be repeated in Galicia.
Errejón’s career
In the coming weeks Yolanda Díaz must appoint a new spokesperson to give voice and face to Sumar in the Congress of Deputies. Not a simple task within the coalition puzzle, where each formation has a quota that could now be altered. The name that is used most strongly these days is that of Íñigo Errejón, that already held the position of parliamentary spokesperson between January 2016, when Podemos entered the Congress of Deputies, and February 2017, when he was removed from the spokesperson and replaced by Irene Montero after losing the battle of Vistalegre 2.
The leader, who in 2019 launched the split of Más Madrid and a few months later launched his own national party –More Country– has recently become one of the Díaz’s most trusted people and one of his main advisors. He distancing with Mónica García’s party and the dissolution de facto of Más País – with the integration of its federations in Sumar – turn him into a politician closer to Sumar than to the formation of Más Madrid itself.
This is attached to your profile, recognizable to a large social majority, and broadcast in the media. In the ranks of Sumar they recognize him as a great speaker, something that could favor his performance as spokesperson. Already in the general election campaign, Iñigo Errejón emerged as one of the authorized voices of Yolanda Díaz; With various interviews and public interventions, he managed make up for the absence of known profiles in the national candidacy. The effectiveness When it comes to conveying messages to the public arena, they make him a candidate who is running to occupy the spokesperson.
If his political career is his strong point, his political career is also his main liability, since his figure generates misgivings in a part of Sumar, in formations like IU or the commons. In the first case, because since his time in Podemos he always publicly rejected an agreement with Alberto Garzón’s men; in the second, due to his decision to appear in the 2019 general elections for Catalonia, where he competed electorally with Ada Colau’s party without winning a seat. If Lois was a figure of consensus, it is not clear that Errejón’s profile achieved this condition, although the fact that both IU and the comuns have managed to have government ministries could calm the criticism and leave Díaz freer hands to put him at the head of the parliamentary group.
Vidal, the Catalan option
Another of the names that are on the table these days to occupy the Spokesperson’s Office is that of the deputy of the commons Aina Vidal, who currently serves as deputy spokesperson for Colau’s party. The Catalan deputy also has wide experience facing the public and is one of the most highly rated speakers in the parliamentary group. The fact that she is a woman works in her favor, considering the Díaz’s commitment to female profiles to distinguish themselves from the male spokespersons of the main parties, PP and PSOE. Personally, it is also a beloved leader in Congress and with proven ability to build bridges between different sensitivities.
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His appointment, however, would lead to the common people gained even more weight, after holding both the party spokesperson and a ministry -both occupied by Ernest Urtasun-. Furthermore, he would force a deeper group address resetsince it would imply giving up the deputy spokesperson that he currently occupies and would open the door to the entry of other formations, either Izquierda Unida – which today does not have an assistant spokesperson -, or another leader of the comuns, or Errejón himself, who could complement the Catalan from a more secondary position.
Although these two options are the ones that have the most strength today, we must not rule out that, in his choice, Díaz repeats the pattern he followed with Lois, where trust and confidence are prioritized. Sumar’s pedigree to the trajectory and experience. If the Galician leader opted for this route, there are options such as the deputy Verónica Martínez Barbero, who in the last legislature was a trusted position of Díaz in the Ministry of Labor, occupying the General Directorate of Labor. Other names like Manuel Lago either Carlos Martin Urriza They are another of the paintings considered purely Sumar. Yolanda Díaz, lastly, will be the one to take the lead. summary decision. A decision that should be finalized in less than a month.