Iglesias threatens Sumar's forces with airing the group's internal fights in Congress

Pablo Iglesias has angered for the second time in just two weeks the parties that support the group Unidas Podemos in the Congress of Deputies for airing internal debates in this political space. Through his television, Canal Red, Iglesias launched a notice for sailors, in response to their alleged positions on the list of appearing parties in the Kitchen III investigation commission. His party wants several journalists and the former vice president of the Government to attend, an extreme that the right-wing parties, but also the PSOE, flatly reject.

The historical leader of the purples, who uses Canal Red to charge against Yolanda Díaz, the PSOE, Más Madrid or Compromís, wondered on his podcast, La Base, why “the parties integrated in Sumar” that make up the parliamentary group “arrived to propose to vote on the proposal for appearances of the PSOE”, which excluded these journalists, “and I excluded myself”. Converted into a “media asset” and director of his own television after leaving his political and institutional positions, Iglesias barely introduces this supposed internal debate, to slip that, even if he now decides to “shut up”, “we also find out here what it is about”.

He refers to the leadership of the group, in which Podemos has a slim majority, and which is made up of the same people who were part of it when he was in charge of Unidas Podemos, some of whom are very close politically and personally to the former secretary general: “There are those who he was very offended because on this channel we sometimes tell what is being discussed on the left. In my years in politics I learned that 90% of the job of the journalists who followed us was basically to find out what was happening in our meetings, because there were always colleagues willing to sing la traviata”. “Now we also find out here what is being said, and we are amazed to know that there were those who asked the confederal group to support the PSOE in preventing [Antonio García] Ferreras from declaring in the commission. Today I'm going to keep quiet, but hopefully everyone understands that certain favors from the PSOE never come free,” he warned..

Among the parties of the confederal group it is angry that Iglesias, for the second time, spreads internal debates. Also that, for the second time, he misrepresents his words. And that he threatens to reveal more details of the conversations within the leadership of United We Can. The common reading is that he does so by presenting himself as a journalist, but operating as a political actor who uses the words of his colleagues for partisan purposes.. They do not want to go into the details out of responsibility, and they claim to be invested in the electoral campaign.

Two weeks ago, leaders of these formations considered that the former second vice president was taking “very serious” steps when airing these talks, and they interpreted that he seeks to “break the parliamentary group”, in addition to generating a climate contrary to the platform of the vice president of the Government. Officially, Podemos and the rest of the UP forces are proclaiming a kind of ceasefire these days, although the tensions are still latent, and will surface again after the regional and municipal protests of 28-M. Now the battle does not touch the internal, they interpret all the parties; Or, at least, this is not the time to let the confrontation surface..

Beyond what affects his groupmates, Iglesias questions the role of Compromís and Más País, which he refers to as “Más Madrid”. This force does not have representation in Congress, where the two deputies of Más País are, the sister formation, led by Íñigo Errejón. Iglesias first accused them of giving their “support” to the PSOE to avoid appearances by journalists in this space, and then stated that “Compromís and Más País have put themselves in profile and are not part of the investigation commission.”. These forces are integrated into the Plural parliamentary group, which is represented in the commission by forces such as Junts per Catalunya.

What underlies, interpret different actors in the political space, is the desire to present Podemos as the only force on the left capable of confronting any power, but also the determination of Iglesias to force other parties to give up the loudspeaker that gives them La Sexta, the chain run by Ferreras.

We can denounce seeing each day more excluded in the media. On Thursday, the Central Electoral Board slammed the appeal of Podemos and IU, which run together in 10 of 12 communities with elections and in some of the most important municipalities, against RTVE's coverage plan for the 28M elections. This plan assigns them only 1% of time in the informational blocks. Podemos affirms that from the PSOE, but also from the media and the economic elites, they seek to corner them and strengthen the bipartisanship, and this is one of the keys to their campaign speech.

Change of rules after disagreements in the Kitchen commission

On Thursday, Iglesias dedicated the program of his podcast to denounce the scant media coverage of the accusations of the retired commissioner José Manuel Villarejo Pérez, who was questioned in the commission of investigation on the operation Catalonia and the sewers of the State a day before. The appearance of the commissioner, with several open judicial fronts related to corruption, and that of Higini Cierco i Noguer, president of the Andorran Bank, are the only two approved by the groups that participate in the commission.

The historical leader of Podemos affirms that Junts, ERC, Bildu and the CUP would have also supported his list of appearing parties. From ERC they refuse to comment on debates held behind closed doors, and stress that the focus in regards to the activities of this commission should be on the Catalonia operation. The rest of the forces second the version of the former vice president of the Government.

From the PSOE, for their part, they reject the version of the director of Canal Red: they maintain that Podemos “was left alone” on this issue, by not accepting “everyone's work plan”. “They voted with PP and Vox against our work plans”, they abound. Initially, the groups voted on closed lists of those appearing, but the lack of agreement has led the president of the commission, Ferrán Bel, to adopt changes, supported by a report by the Chamber's lawyers.

On Friday the deadline for the groups to present new lists expired, and on Wednesday the 17th the commission will meet again to vote, now independently, the names of the future appearing parties. Given the precedents, different groups assume that Unidas Podemos will not be able to impose on those appearing, and therefore Iglesias will not be able to return to the Congress of Deputies taking advantage of this commission.