The open wound between We can y AddDespite the passage of time, the distance and the different paths that both projects have taken, they have not yet healed. And that was clear this Monday at the presentation of the new biography of Irene Montero, We must have done something (Navona), in which the former minister reviews her role in the dizzying last decade of Spanish politics and also the clash with a Yolanda Díaz of which Montero, this Monday, said it had been the “biggest mistake” of Podemos in its almost eleven years of existence. history.
Montero presented his book at an event in Madrid that was attended by the entire current leadership of Podemos and a good part of the historical leaders. Several dozens of people were left out due to lack of capacity, which caused a small scuffle at the beginning of the event, which the former minister solved by announcing that she will hold another presentation of her book in the capital. In the auditorium were present both the current secretary general of the party, Ione Belarra, and her predecessor, Pablo Iglesias, along with names such as Pablo Echenique, Juanma del Olmo, Julio Rodriguez, Isa Serra or Pablo Fernandez.
With this audience – also nourished by workers and former workers of the party – Montero played at home. And, although Podemos has been claiming for months that it has left behind its quarrels with Sumar and that its fight with Díaz is in the past, the truth is that the name of the vice-president did not take long to appear.. It was brought up by the journalist Joana Bonet, presenter of the event, who asked the number two of Podemos about a leader who is the protagonist, much to the regret of the purple party, of the last three years of the space of the left to the left of the PSOE. Montero’s answer was lapidary: “It was our biggest political mistake”.
“We made that decision”, that of appointing Diaz as leader of Unidas Podemos when Pablo Iglesias resigned in 2021, “thinking that it would serve to broaden the space and have more power to transform, which was our obsession, to balance the correlation of forces with the PSOE,” recalled Montero. In those days, the Vice President’s relationship with Iglesias was one of close friendship, and the initial idea was that she would take care of the governmental part and Podemos would exercise the role of its lightning rod as the main force in the political space. “But neither has the space been expanded nor do we have more power, the space has been handed over to those who do not want to transform anything, so it is our biggest mistake,” Montero lamented.
Against the PSOE also had words the former minister, who accused the socialists of having launched a “political operation” during the last years to “replace the political leadership of a space that they calculate that gathers between 10% and 12% of the votes by another political leadership” that is functional to the interests of the PSOE. “And that is what we are seeing, that in the Government only the PSOE rules, and all the power that the people have given to Sumar is exercised de facto by the PSOE,” said Montero, who criticized that this alleged surrender has “narrowed the possibilities” of the alternative left in Spain.
In view of this situation, the leader assured that her objective is that Podemos gets back on its feet so that the PSOE assumes that has to have a relationship of “coordination” with the alternative left.instead of the “subordination” in the government in which Sumar now finds itself -considers Montero-.