30 May, 2023 @ 17:15
1 min read

Spain’s deputy prime minister registers new leftist party Unite in bid to save beleaguered left-wing parties

Yolanda Díaz, Launches Her Candidacy For The 2023 General Elections In Spain For Sumar
Madrid, Spain; 02.04.2023.- The current Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, launches her candidacy for the 2023 general elections in Spain for Sumar. ?Today I am going to take a step forward, I want to be the first president of Spain. Because it is the time of women, because women want to be the protagonists of history? This afternoon, the vice president presented the programmatic lines of her project, defined as a new "bill of rights" and a democratic, economic and social "contract" for the Spain of the "next decade". endorsed by more than a dozen organizations. She arrives walking with Mónica García (leader of Más Madrid), Ada Colau (mayor of Barcelona) or Sira Rego (IU MEP), before taking the stage accompanied by trans rights activist Carla Antonelli and Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli , as well as a young content creator in networks, a trade unionist and a small business representative. Photo: Juan Carlos Rojas

SPAIN’S Deputy Prime Minister and Labor Minister Yolanda Diaz has officially registered as a political party ahead of the snap general elections that will be held on July 23. Her objective is for the new group, which translates as ‘Unite’, to absorb parties from Spain’s splintered left wing as well as leftist groups from civil society. 

The move comes after the party with which she is currently affiliated, Unidas Podemos, suffered heavy losses at the local and regional elections on Sunday. The parties that make up the bloc went from 49 seats in the 12 regions up for grabs on Sunday to just 18, disappearing completely from Valencia, the Canary Islands, Madrid, Cantabria and Castilla-La Mancha. 

The Socialist Party, which governs nationally in coalition with Unidas Podemos, also performed poorly at the 12 regional and more than 8,000 local elections, prompting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to make the surprise announcement of an early general election. 

Sources from the new platform told news agency Europa Press that the party was registered today, Tuesday, at the Interior Ministry, and that all of the parties with which Diaz has been negotiating for inclusion in the platform have also been informed of the move. 

According to electoral timetables, Sumar will now have 10 days to negotiate deals with leftist parties and other groups for their inclusion in the platform. These negotiations were due to take place after the dust settled from the local and regional polls on Sunday, but will have to be held at breakneck speed after the general election was called. 

The United Left party (Izquierda Unida), which is part of the Unidas Podemos bloc, announced today that it will be joining Sumar, along with the environmental parties Verdes Equo and Alianza Verde. 

But it is still unclear what Podemos will do. The far-left party, which was founded in 2014, has considered Diaz’s actions to be treacherous. But the group’s poor showing at the elections, influenced by a series of botched national laws such as the sexual consent law, may end up forcing their hand to run alongside Sumar.

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Simon Hunter

Simon Hunter has been living in Madrid since the year 2000 and has worked as a journalist and translator practically since he arrived. For 16 years he was at the English Edition of Spanish daily EL PAÍS, editing the site from 2014 to 2022, and is currently one of the Spain reporters at The Times. He is also a voice actor, and can be heard telling passengers to "mind the gap" on Spain's AVLO high-speed trains.

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