The Electoral Board removes Teresa Rodríguez's party from the TVE debate at the request of IU and Podemos

The candidate for mayor of Seville from Adelante Andalucía, Teresa Rodríguez's party, will not be able to be in the six-person debate that was scheduled for May 19 on TVE. The absence of Sandra Heredia in the meeting responds to the fact that the Provincial Electoral Board of Seville has admitted two appeals presented, on the one hand, by the IU and Más País coalition and, on the other, by Podemos. The two allegations were against the information coverage plan of the public entity in Andalusia and the justifications are identical. The argument is that, according to the requirements of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (Loreg), the Andalusian party cannot be considered a “significant political group”..

This is how it appears in a resolution of the electoral authority dated May 11 to which this newspaper has had access. The coalition presented an allegation against the coverage plan that equated Adelante with the rest of the forces, but it must be taken into account that Teresa Rodríguez's formation did not appear in the last municipal elections. In 2019 Adelante Andalucía was presented in hundreds of locations, but as a coalition of Podemos, IU and two Andalusian forces. Teresa Rodríguez was still the leader of the purples then, a year and a half later, she was expelled by Podemos from the parliamentary group accused of turncoatism. The woman from Cádiz, who controlled the registration of the Adelante brand, used it after leaving Podemos to put together her Andalusian project, which is the one with which she presented herself to the regional elections in 2022 and with which she is now presenting herself in dozens of locations for the elections. of 2018.

The appeal of IU and Más País and the departure of Adelante Andalucía from the RTVE coverage plan is nothing more than the (pen) last blow of the struggle for the inheritance of that original coalition. Because although Teresa Rodríguez kept the brand, the political rights of that alliance are under the control of Podemos and IU, which were the parties that promoted the brand under the auspices of the woman from Cádiz and the then leader of IU, Antonio Maíllo. Relations between the two today are non-existent.

In the letter, the Provincial Electoral Board of Seville recalls that Adelante Andalucía did not achieve 5% of the votes in the autonomous elections last year. It stayed at 4.58%. And that is one of the requirements that the Loreg establishes for a party that did not appear in the previous elections to be considered a representative political group.. The argument of the IU and the rest of the coalition forces is that the inclusion of Adelante in the coverage plan gives it a “privileged status” compared to other forces that presented themselves to the municipal elections in 2019, such as the Andalusians of Andalusia. por Sí, one of the heir forces of the PA.

The situation is reminiscent of what happened in the regional election campaign held on June 19, when the left-wing coalition formed by IU, Podemos, Más País and three other formations acted in a similar way.. Then the Electoral Board agreed with the Andalusians and Teresa Rodríguez participated in the debates scheduled by RTVE and RTVA, which on this occasion has not included Adelante in its coverage plan. Sources from Adelante Andalucía advance that their intention is to appeal to the Central Electoral Board, since before the resolution of the provincial authority an appeal can be made within a period of 24 hours from its notification.

It must be taken into account that IU, Más País and Adelante Andalucía have achieved a single alliance in all of Andalusia, the one that seeks to revalidate the mayoralty of Cádiz after the departure of José María González, Kichi. The candidate, David de la Cruz, heads the only coalition of these former partners, although Podemos, which is very weak in the capital of Cadiz, got out of the pact at the last minute. Teresa Rodriguez’s party has preferred not to ally with the rest of the left-wing forces in the places where there are ententes, convinced that the future of their party is to go alone. This, however, worries the rest of the left, including the PSOE, because of the possibility that the votes of Adelante are not enough to win councilors and end up hurting other forces by the division of the vote of this political spectrum.