Nacho Álvarez rejects being a minister and leaves Podemos

Nacho Álvarez has decided to resign from all his positions in Podemos and return to his activity as a professor at the university. The leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, had sent this Friday to Ione Belarra’s party a proposal for them to enter the new Government with Álvarez as minister. The until now Secretary of State for Social Rights has announced his resignation after his party’s refusal to accept that offer. “It is evident that the party leadership has lost the trust it placed in me when it appointed me as a member of the party Executive,” he writes in a letter to the membership spread on his social networks.

“I consider that the most honest thing is to step aside and resign from my positions in the party, leaving both the Ministry of Economy and the State Citizen Council and the Executive,” he writes in a note in which he states that during the last few years He has had differences with management on several occasions but believes that true loyalty involves “looking for common ground.” “Under that premise I have always understood my political commitment, both in Podemos and in Sumar, the coalition in which we have joined,” he says.

This Friday, Yolanda Díaz’s negotiating teams had conveyed to the Podemos leadership an agreement proposal for those from Belarra to enter the Government. This agreement required that the minister of Sumar’s quota be Álvarez and also committed Podemos to cease the “insults and attacks” on members of the coalition, as well as to go together in coalition in the next appointments of the electoral cycle, such as the European ones. Ione Belarra sent a response a few minutes later, through social networks, in which he insisted that the party’s option to enter the Government was still Irene Montero.

After Podemos’s refusal, Álvarez understands that the party has lost confidence in him. The until now Secretary of State for Social Rights in the ministry headed by Belarra had maintained that he would only accept to be a minister if his party defended it. After the latest movements this Friday, he announces that he is resigning from leading a portfolio in the next government and that his stage as part of the leadership of the party to which he has belonged since his birth ends.

Podemos thus loses a highly prestigious technician, who during the last term gained the recognition of his interlocutors in the Socialist Party and the total trust of Yolanda Díaz, who proposed him as an economic spokesperson in the electoral campaign, as negotiator of the agreement of the Government with those of Pedro Sánchez and now as minister. This approach to Díaz, however, caused misgivings in the leadership of his party, which saw in this movement a kind of betrayal. The misgivings remained to this day.

“I am very grateful for the trust that Yolanda Díaz has placed in me, but I am not going to accept being a minister in the next government if the leadership of my party does not share or approve it. In my political culture, it is not conceivable to accept an institutional position outside the organization of which one is a part,” she says in the letter to the militancy.

Álvarez takes stock of his time in Podemos, a training that he describes as a “crucial tool.” However, he closes his letter with a message in favor of unity. “The main strength of the leftist and progressive forces is unity, and, above all, fraternity between the various projects. Let us not forget, the parties do not owe themselves to their leaders or their militants, but fundamentally to the citizens they aspire to represent,” he concludes.

The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has also reacted to the news in X. “This news makes me extremely sad. Thank you @nachoalvarez_ for all these years in which I have had the opportunity to prove your professional and personal worth. Podemos does not deserve these stratagems that put our people at the feet of horses,” he said.

The now former leader of Podemos leaves the party after almost a decade. Álvarez has always been within the executive of Podemos except in one of the most turbulent moments of the party, Vistalegre II, the assembly that confronted Pablo Iglesias with Íñigo Errejón in 2017. Then, Álvarez resigned from his position in the direction of the party, along with Carolina Bescansa, with whom He promoted a kind of third way to resolve the internal struggle that was bleeding the party dry.

Shortly after, Iglesias “recovered” the economist with a “permanent guest” position in the management. “He has done fundamental work in the Ministry of Economy, we want him to continue working in that area and he agrees,” Iglesias said then, now out of politics. Within the coalition government, Álvarez negotiated for Unidas Podemos all the general budgets of the legislature and was the head behind some of the most important economic measures of the Government.

In his letter, he assures that he will now return to his job as a professor of Economics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. “I will continue working to promote equality, freedom and a more just and equitable society. That is the path that we can only travel hand in hand with others and with the desire to trace a common path. I am sure that on that path we will continue to meet”, he says goodbye.