A spokeswoman and freedom to vote: Compromís negotiates with Sumar its status in Congress

Sumar has started negotiations with Compromís to give the Valencian supporters a differentiated status within their parliamentary group. The leadership of Yolanda Díaz's party held a videoconference meeting the day before yesterday with the co-spokespersons of the Valencian coalition and at the same time imminent deputies in Congress, Àgueda Micó (Més) and Alberto Ibáñez (Iniciativa), to discuss details of the distribution of tasks and resources , once the Cortes Generales are constituted on August 17.

The details of the conversation have not come to light, but Compromís sources affirm that the coalition aspires to have its “own voice” in the Sumar bench, in the style of the pact that the Catalan communes signed with United We Can in the last legislature and that they will now repeat probably. The protocol signed by the two parties for July 23 obliges them to explore “all possible legal avenues for the constitution of their own parliamentary group made up of the deputies obtained” by the electoral coalition. This is an apparently unfeasible option, because the Sumar-Compromís list did not achieve the five deputies nor the 15% in each constituency (Castellón, Valencia and Alicante) for which it was presented to the polls, although it was close, only to 5,000 Vox votes in Castellón, which would have given him the fifth seat and 15% in the three provinces.

Other formations of territorial scope such as ERC and Junts are exploring ways of collaboration to meet the requirements together and form a parliamentary group, something very subject to the interpretation of the Table of Congress, hence there are many options for a negotiation to take place with the PSOE, Sumar and other forces such as the PNV and Bildu to promote an alternative majority to PP and Vox in the management body of Parliament. The capacity for political action and economic resources are at stake.

The pact with Sumar contemplates that, in the event that their own group is not possible, “the chosen deputies will be integrated into the framework group of the coalition as a whole under the principles of mutual respect, horizontality and territorial autonomy with their own voice that will remain institutionalized in the group's operating regulations”, is written in the protocol. This, say sources from the Valencian formation, should translate into a sort of subgroup with a deputy spokeswoman, the ability to present initiatives, freedom to vote on matters that are not shared and “not diluting the brand”, that is, having differentiated times in Interventions to explain the singularity of Compromís.

The agreement also contemplates a distribution of resources and advisers proportional to the representation obtained (two deputies out of 31) and that Compromís receives 5% of the subsidy to parties that corresponds to Sumar.

For Compromís, abandoning Sumar's parliamentary discipline is not part of the script, at least for now. This was what happened in the 2016 experience with Podemos, when Pablo Iglesias refused to cede a deputy so that the four Valencian representatives of the electoral coalition could form their own group in Congress. There was a fracture and they ended up in the mixed group. The appointments of April and November 2019 were very different. Due to the distrust, Compromís decided to run alone, but only obtained a single seat, that of Baldoví.

Sumar's experiment, with Iglesias out of the equation and with complicity generated both with Díaz and with leaders of Más País such as Íñigo Errejón, has a vocation for permanence, according to coalition sources, despite the fact that the sovereignist sectors of Més are suspicious of reach agreements with state-level formations and defend solo competition. “If the agreement is fulfilled so that Compromís has its own voice, we do not have to leave,” they explain. The resource benefits of staying inside are greater than those of the mixed group, they add..

But there is another factor that will make the break more complicated. The agreement with Sumar has made Compromís the Díaz brand in the Valencian Community. The party of the vice president of the Government and acting Minister of Labor does not have any structure in the territory. To fill his gaps in the candidacies, he has drawn on people from Podemos such as Txema Guijarro. The purple ones are dismasted, practically disappeared from the Valencian map after the sinking of May 28. Some former members of Podemos, such as Antonio Estañ or César Jiménez, had already been collaborating with Compromís.

The options of having a life of its own for Sumar go through handing over its flag to the Valencianistas or one of the parties that make it up. It is the window defended by cadres of the Iniciativa del Poble Valencià dissatisfied with the organic weight that the nationalist wing of Compromís, Més, is exerting within the coalition since the resignation of Mónica Oltra. The replacement of Carles Mulet as senator and his replacement by the former president of the Cortes Enric Morera has given arguments to those who are not afraid to take risks and set up a new project, even if it is once again fragmenting the space of the left of the PSOE. This split, however, will always be more difficult with Compromís within the Sumar parliamentary group in Congress.