It is not that he had many options if he wants to survive, but Podemos ratified yesterday that he will go in coalition with Sumar to the general elections. The purple party accepts the enormous sacrifice of dropping Irene Montero because it considers that the damage of its “main political asset” not going on the electoral lists is less than the risk of running alone and compromising its future politically and economically.

Podemos has fought the battle for Montero for weeks, however, now that he has lost the war, he has decided to lay down his arms and grant a truce to Yolanda Díaz to face 23-J. Thus, the general secretary, Ione Belarra, verified yesterday that her party is now surrendering to the leadership of Sumar's candidate within the coalition and that she resigns herself to playing a low profile in the new cycle that is ahead.. “From this moment on, Podemos assumes its role in this candidacy, a modest role,” Belarra solemnized before the State Citizen Council, the highest body between congresses.. This means getting “behind” Diaz and “being there” where she “asks” them.

Not without bitterness, Belarra said that this begins with the electoral campaign. For the first time since its birth, Podemos is not going to “set the strategy”, but rather it has to bury its tone and its messages to obey others. Sumar will exercise this control in collaboration with other parties in the space, such as Más Madrid, which co-directs what affects the Madrid constituency, the most mediatic of these elections.

So, Podemos goes into something similar to a hibernation. It will be diluted in Sumar and he does not even know if its leaders, with Belarra at the helm, will have a prominent role in the campaign or the parliamentary group. It is the confirmation that there is a change of cycle in space and that Podemos is only a reduced part that no longer rules.

This step by Belarra is also an order to the organization and the militancy to put an end to the noise and row in the same direction as Díaz to stop the “reactionary tsunami” and contribute at least to ensuring that the eight candidates with purple cards located in positions of exit from the lists can achieve the act of deputy. However, this is a truce that will last until the night of July 23.. Once the polls have closed, Podemos will have the capacity to reopen the internal battle in space if the result is not good. The party has lowered its weapons, but it always has them loaded.

The excluded accuses Díaz of “accepting the rules” of anti-feminists

Proof of this is that yesterday he shot Díaz at the same time that he submitted to his discipline.. First Belarra and then Irene Montero made it known that their surrender is the “most painful” and “difficult” path that the formation has taken, but that it does so because “the only possibility of revalidating the coalition government is to present a single candidacy” in space. That is why it was remarked that “the collective interest and the country are placed before the interest as a party”. “Some have tried to take advantage of this, but it will also be the success of our project in the medium term,” Belarra said.

As the decision to go with Sumar was more than taken, a large part of the morbidity of the Citizen Council had to listen to Montero for the first time, who was breaking his silence. In an unprecedented gesture, Podemos issued its intervention. The minister closed ranks with Belarra, became co-responsible for the decision to go forward and vindicated the leader of Sumar between attacks: «I want to thank you for all the support, affection and efforts to lift an unfair veto that Yolanda has wanted to maintain ».

Montero presented his exclusion as a concession to the “anti-feminist reaction”. “We cannot accept the rules of the game of reaction and the extreme right,” he reproached. And he pointed out as a victim for his “advances” in Equality, without a hint of self-criticism. Not even before the consequences of the law of only yes is yes. Montero, who was wearing a T-shirt with the face of Audre Lorde, quoted a phrase of his: “Your silence will not protect you.” And he finished: “The reaction is stopped precisely in this way, not by keeping quiet but by making us visible.” From outside, Pablo Iglesias put his stamp: “It is not often that courage and decency prevail over cowardice and pettiness.”