“Arithmetic is necessary, but elections are won with a winning project”

The left takes center stage. Several hundred people attended the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid this Saturday to attend the launch of the new coalition sponsored by Movimiento Sumar, Izquierda Unida, Comuns y Más Madrid, ‘Un paso al front’. The leaders of the political space of what is now Sumar in the Government have agreed on the need to relaunch a winning project against the extreme right, amid calls to repeat the unity of the space but defending the traditional values ​​of the left.

“We are here to listen, because there is a lot of conversation inside and a lot of conversation outside. No one is going to make a mistake by covering their ears. We are here to understand the discomfort, to look for solutions, to direct our gaze to the right place, which is above and not to the side,” said the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the Madrid City Council, Rita Maestre, at the presentation of the event. “There are not too many people in the subway, there is not enough doctors; there is not even one worker too much, there are too many millionaires,” he claimed before giving way to the speakers: Lara Hernández, from Movimiento Sumar; Ernest Urtasun, of the Commons; Antonio Maíllo, from Izquierda Unida; and Mónica García, from Más Madrid.

The room in which the four leaders spoke was full of leaders of these political groups. Ministers such as Pablo Bustinduy, leaders such as the spokesperson for Más Madrid in the Assembly, Manuela Bergerot, or the deputy and coordinator of the Comuns, Candela López, were sitting on a stage composed behind the microphones. But also territorial cadres, deputies, MEPs and leaders from across the political space. Sitting among the public were personalities such as Unai Sordo, the general secretary of the Workers’ Commissions, or Pepe Álvarez, from the UGT. Also former leaders such as Alberto Garzón, Ada Colau or Nacho Álvarez.

The only thing missing is the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, who has decided to stay on the sidelines at this time but to support all the movements that are occurring on the left. Only Mónica García, the Minister of Health, has mentioned it in her speech, in the final intervention. “We are proud of the struggles of the working class of Yolanda Díaz, of course. Of Yolanda Díaz. Thanks to Yolanda for always being on the side of the working people,” claimed the leader of Más Madrid.

Lara Hernández: “People want us walking together”

The first to intervene was Lara Hernández, the coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, who celebrated that the left-wing parties are united in working for the next coalition. “Today we leave here with urgency. The urgency of hope in the face of fear. The urgency of reconciliation with ourselves and with our people. The urgency of historical responsibility. The urgency of not giving in to resignation. The urgency of fighting to win. We are going to come together because we are going to beat them. Because we are more and we are better, because we shake off the fear of the extreme right like this, building, cooperating, creating,” he said in his speech, in which he paraphrased Gabriel Rufián three days ago in the Galileo Galilei room: beating Vox seat by seat, province by province.

In fact, he has opened up to explore the formulas that the ERC spokesperson in Congress has been proposing in recent days. “It is not fear that we have to have of the real Spain. It is possible that we, the federal, confederal, sovereign left, can understand each other. The historical time today is different and the challenge is new. It is a fight against the unfairness of our electoral system. We must and can look for formulas. Let us be imaginative,” he said.

And after another of the conversations opened in that talk between Rufián and Emilio Delgado, Hernández has recognized that the left has lost contact with the street. “We are going to build a left that reconnects with the street. Because yes, comrades and companions: in this time we have lost pulse and communion with the people. With patience, but with determination: we must be strong in the neighborhoods, in the workplaces, in the institutes, in the associations, the old ones and especially the new ones… The defeat of neo-fascism is substantiated there… Any void we leave is occupied by the extreme right,” he claimed.

Urtasun: “Arithmetic is necessary, but we need a winning project”

“Arithmetic is very necessary, but elections are not won with electoral sociology alone, they are won with a winning project, which is what we have done so far. Govern well for the majority for the remainder of the legislature,” defended the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun.

The Sumar Movement spokesperson has also claimed that part of the work that Rufián proposes is what Sumar achieved on July 23, 2023, in the general elections. “We won the elections on 23J with meticulous work to maximize the seats,” he said to vindicate the agreement that incorporated the entire state left but also a dozen sovereign and territorial formations and that allowed the coalition government to be revalidated.

Urtasun has also sent several messages to the Socialist Party, with whom he shares a seat in the Council of Ministers. “The PSOE says that there are not enough majorities, what we cannot accept are prior vetoes in the Council of Ministers. I want to tell the PSOE that elections are not won with the handbrake on when it comes to facing social problems. The Comuns have just shown us this with a budget agreement,” he said.

And he has also responded to those who are trying these days to change the discourse of the left on issues such as immigration. “You don’t fight the extreme right with the glasses of looking at the reality of the extreme right, you beat them where they are weak, you beat them by saying that they are sell-outs, that they always defend the strong against the weak,” he claimed.

Maíllo: “The melancholy on the left is over”

“It seems that there are frameworks that invite melancholy. The melancholy on the left has ended and a stage of government ambition, dispute and cultural war has begun,” Maíllo began his intervention.

“We have to manage reality, but without melancholy. Without nostalgia. With a correct response to that moment. This moment that is presented with a unitary will in an irreversible manner, open to more incorporations that I am sure will occur, is a response to those people who thought we were about to be shipwrecked. It is also a message to that extreme right, who thought they had won,” claimed the general coordinator of Izquierda Unida.

The IU leader has also sent veiled messages to other leaders in the political space. “We are open to nuances, life is nuances. And we are very clear about who are people who are part of the democratic bloc and who are part of the reactionary bloc, and we are not going to make them equal. It would be the greatest injustice,” he said.

Maíllo has defended the new alliance of the left as an act of obedience to the “social clamor” that demands “unity,” he said. “Unity as the only instrument that can allow us to be relevant, changing policies in favor of social justice,” he added.

“This path has just begun. We propose support that is useful for other organizations and for many people who do not belong to parties, but want to be part of a transformative project. More organizations are going to join,” Maíllo predicted. “The new common sense is in unity. The key is how to form unity, not if there is unity. That there is unity is something assumed,” he defended.

Mónica García: “We know perfectly well who our adversary is, we look up”

The leader of Más Madrid has also defended, along the same lines as Rita Maestre, that the adversary is “above” and not on the side, not in the neighborhoods but in the “technoligarchs.” “Rights do not compete. We know who the adversaries are, the techno-ligarchs. The problem is not a teenager with a cell phone, it is the algorithm that steals expectations for the future. The big holders. Those who parasitize our public services to do business. The ‘taxers’ and their boyfriends and the Quirón group. We do not ask the neighbors to account, we ask those at the top to account,” he claimed.

“The right wants to divide us and that is not going to happen. We are not going to allow it,” he said. And he has also launched a message of unity: “There is no one left over here. We need every atom.” “We have to be in the neighborhoods and in the institutions, all contributions are welcome,” he said. “Thanks to Gabriel, thanks to Emilio for the act the other day,” he insisted on that same idea.

“Thanks to Gabriel, thanks to Emilio”

The event, as happened three days ago with the talk between Emilio Delgado and Gabriel Rufián, has exceeded expectations. On this occasion there have been several hundred, many more, people who have been left without seats in the venue prepared for the event. The organizers have had to open an adjacent room to accommodate all those people. The party leaders took the opportunity to come down to greet them before the start of the rally, which started much later than expected.

Compared to what was happening until now on the left, especially in the Sumar events, this Saturday there was not one person above the rest, but four leaders speaking at the same level of importance.

Despite everything, the event has been marked by the absence of the second vice president and leader of Sumar in the Government. Yolanda Díaz announced this week that she would be absent from the February 21 event to give the parties space to organize. “It is the time for political formations,” he said in an interview on La Sexta to explain his decision not to attend this launch. The Minister of Labor will therefore maintain a low profile while the new coalition takes its first steps and she advances in the process of personal reflection on her political future.

This Saturday, after listening to the interventions, she celebrated the event in a post by Bluesky: “This is how we are going to win the next elections: by being excited, cooperating, moving forward. Always taking steps forward. Together. Hand in hand. We did it in ’23 and we will do it again. Pride as colleagues.”

This Saturday’s event is a first stop in the construction of a large front for the general elections. The four parties have been working for months to consolidate a first core of organization, with various levels of work and various decision-making bodies, some smaller, others broader in which the great leaders are incorporated. And some specific groups, such as communication, networks, etc. A deployment similar to that of a political party but incorporating the four directions.

But the idea is not to stay there but for this core to remain over time, in non-electoral periods, to coordinate the work and political orientation, and expand the space when the elections arrive to incorporate into an electoral coalition the rest of the forces that renounce participating in a long-term structure of the state left. Thus, when the 2027 call arrives, the parties aspire to convince all the organizations that joined the same candidacy on July 23.