There are two months left until the European elections and the alternative left of the PSOE is once again experiencing a key moment in its reconfiguration process after the formation of Sumar. The lists for the candidacy for the European Parliament have reopened tensions in the space of Yolanda Díaz, who has not yet closed the complete configuration with her allies, that is, the power quotas of each party in the common candidacy.
Izquierda Unida was the first party in the coalition that demanded that the vice president take steps forward to close the negotiation as soon as possible, both the electoral program and the people who were going to represent Sumar in Europe. However, as of today, the distribution of the places on the European list is in a “deadlock”, as revealed yesterday by the Secretary of Organization of IU, Ismael González. Sumar's leadership “fails to bring together people and organizations for this unitary candidacy,” he lamented. IU seeks to be “as high as possible” in that candidacy. This is, as they recognize in the formation, having the number two position on the list for their MEP and winner of their primaries, Manu Pineda. Something that Sumar's address already knows, as explained in IU. In the last European elections, in 2019, when they ran with Unidas Podemos, they won two starting positions. For the current negotiation, the IU spokesperson offered two ways to unblock the negotiation with the vice president's party: holding primaries and opening a dialogue process between the coalition organizations, given that at the moment all conversations are produced bilaterally. «If Sumar is not able to close a process, we have democratic mechanisms such as primaries, which are a simple, honest and transparent process that can resolve this issue. We need to finish this process as soon as possible, it has already dragged on too long,” he warned.
IU is not the only party that urges Yolanda Díaz to close an agreement now. In recent days, Compromís has increased the pressure to close an agreement, before slamming the door on Sumar and exploring an alternative candidacy. Mes per Mallorca and Drago have already left Sumar, just nine months after attending the European competitions together, and will join forces with ERC, Bildu and BNG. There is no closed pact with Más Madrid either, as explained in the training of Mónica García, who does not give up a starting position. The commons, who occupied third place in 2019, are confident of having a good position, with Jaume Asens as a ratified candidate, but there is no closed pact either.
The Valencian party seeks to be, at least, among the first four starting positions in the candidacy. A pressure that increases by remembering that they did not demand to be in the Government for the Sumar quota while other parties in the coalition, such as IU, the Commons or Más Madrid do have a representative in Moncloa. Today, the Compromís executive will meet to address the unity candidacy with Sumar. The conversations, for the moment, have not been fruitful and the positions are far apart. Negotiations that are fully affected by the possible political rehabilitation of the former leader of Compromís, Mónica Oltra, once the judge files the case against the politician. In the Valencian party they have encouraged her to take the step and present herself as a candidate in the next European elections, but for now, she has not made a statement. In Sumar, yesterday, they limited themselves to ensuring that Oltra is an “essential political asset”, although they avoided clarifying whether he was offered to be part of the candidacy or promote it to return to politics, in the mouth of spokesperson Ernest Urtasun.
Given the tensions with the parties, especially after IU's notice about the status of the negotiations, Sumar rejects the holding of joint primaries as the party demands. According to Urtasun, there will be “an agreement as soon as possible” and then a vote among the bases to ratify the agreement between parties.