Are you running for the first time in an election?. What measure do you consider most urgent? end inequality. There is a Madrid of two or three speeds. We have been dragging problems in many neighborhoods of Madrid for 30 years that have become chronic and that affect the usual sectors. For example, the betting places in the neighborhoods are a sign of inequality, or that young people do not have decent housing, or that there are abandoned industrial estates.

You have done a lot of activism against bookmakers, but they are regional competition. What can you do from the City Hall? there are competitions. It is true that the measures that are taken must be accompanied by a regional law that, for example, separates betting establishments from schools.. But from the City Council we can make six-month moratoriums so that new licenses are not granted, or prohibit the advertising of bets in the marquees. Vallecas, Carabanchel or Tetuán are full of this type of premises, you have to face it.

Why should a resident of Madrid vote for United We Can when there is so much offer on the left? There is a big difference with respect to the rest of the parties: our legs do not tremble. [Mayor José Luis Martínez] Almeida has lived very comfortably with a fragmented opposition that has provided him with pacts, which has whitewashed his figure with the Villa Pacts and which, when he was on the ropes, was not forceful enough. Podemos would not have allowed, for example, Operation Chamartín, a laundering of the large construction companies.

Has Madrid whitewashed Mayor Almeida? Completely. Where was the opposition with the case of the millionaire masks? We have taken it to court. There have been two scoundrels who have taken the leg of the City Council, but man, has to take some responsibility on the part of the City Government.

When Manuela Carmena presented Operation Chamartín in 2017, Podemos congratulated her on a plan that would bring “less speculation” and “more social housing”. Why are they criticizing him now? They were the wayward councilors who later went to Más Madrid…

But the project remains the same as in 2017 and his party defended it. The project remains the same, but behind it all was an operation to launder public land for BBVA. When we realized that this was not an operation to create public housing, we denounced it.

Would Madrid Nuevo Norte paralyze if it reached the municipal government? Of course. I would reform it to put the citizen at the center of urbanism. The obligation of a ruler is not to favor speculators and large construction companies, but the people.

Do you claim the mandate of Manuela Carmena? I was a voter for Carmena in 2015, and it was a very hopeful mandate, but it did not get where it had been promised. In that government there were two souls: a braver one who wanted to go much further, and a more conservative one who prevented the surplus from being invested in the neighborhoods.

Is that “conservative soul” the current Más Madrid? Yes, but it was Carmena who complied with what M demanded.. Rajoy. Cleaning services, for example, were privatized and Carmena promised in the campaign to recover them and that they be publicly managed. We were able to do it and it was not done, the contracts were renewed again. It is an example that, when the time comes, your legs can shake.

Would you rescind the current urban cleaning contracts? They cannot be rescinded because it would cost us unaffordable money, but we could require companies to comply with the specifications. And, in 2027, when the contracts end, there can be no doubt that we are going to remunicipalize the service.

Do you think that Madrid is an unsafe city? It is a city with a lot of inequality. It cannot be that in Madrid there are neighborhoods where kids have an easier time getting into a youth gang or a betting shop than a sports group or a cultural center. When we tackle that, the other problems will be reduced.

How is this inequality combated? We have three industrial estates, in Vicálvaro, Vallecas and Villaverde, which are underused, but have enormous potential to generate thousands of jobs. You have to invest in culture and sports and you have to create public housing.

Are you in favor of regulating rental prices with the new housing law?. Is it enough to address the problems to access a roof in Madrid? If nothing we've done so far hasn't worked, why don't we intervene in housing prices? There is nothing more social and more democratic than this new law.

But is it enough to regulate prices? We must go further, we must create public housing, but we have different mechanisms to encourage lower prices, for example, the purchase of housing from individuals or the mobilization of Sareb flats.

Would you penalize with surcharges in the IBI the possession of empty flats, as the new law allows? Yeah. What cannot be is that there are large forks or vulture funds with a multitude of empty properties when there are people who need a flat to live.

Do you think it is possible to close the Valdemingómez incinerator? If the commitment to close it has not been fulfilled, it is because there has been no will. It is not acceptable that the residents of Vallecas have to breathe shit every day of their lives, forgive me for the expression, it kills. We have to reach a great pact with other municipalities and create small recycling plants.

Are you afraid that the fragmentation of the left into three candidacies, two to the left of the PSOE, will allow the PP to maintain the Mayor's Office? I am convinced that they will give the numbers. I would have liked to have only one candidacy, and in fact we have done what Yolanda Díaz asked from the beginning: add. We have an agreement with IU and Alianza Verde, and a year ago we wanted to sit down with Más Madrid to talk about a coalition.

But you say that Más Madrid is made up of people with a conservative soul. But it is a progressive party, and what it is about is that no progressive vote stays at home.. More Madrid has a conservative soul because sometimes it gives the feeling that it can falter depending on who pushes them. But it is a party with which many things unite us, and with many proposals that are practically the same as ours: what sets us apart is that we comply with the program. We wanted to sit down with them so that there would be a coalition and they did not want to. We respect that, but I think it was a mistake.

If they gave the numbers, would you enter a municipal government led by Rita Maestre? I come from the world of sports, and when I go out to compete I go out to win, I don't go out to finish second or third. I leave with the intention of having a progressive government headed by Podemos, who is really going to make the transformations of this city possible, and on the 28th, we will talk about what has to be when the people of Madrid decide.

I ask this because that is the possible scenario according to the surveys. But my personal scenario is different, and I don't pay much attention to the polls. This is like when I went out for a run and they told me “you're not going to win this race”, and in the end I won. On the 28th we will see, but for now I am going out to enjoy myself, to play the competition and, of course, knowing clearly that Podemos is a government force at the national level.

On Wednesday he shared an act in Alcorcón with Yolanda Díaz. Are you going to ask them to meet again? It is always a pleasure that we can share a space, because I think that Yolanda and I have a very similar idea of what we want in Madrid.

Do you notice on the street if your level of knowledge among citizens has increased? When we started, there were even people who thought that voting for Rita Maestre was voting for Podemos. But this has changed because I have been obsessed from the beginning in stepping on neighborhoods. The Madrid political class has lived for a long time on the carpet, in the offices, and they do not go out on the streets. Our candidacy is seen as not only a real choice, but also a courageous one.