We can start the 28-M by attributing the achievements of the Government: "The PSOE called us demagogues"
An aggressive start to the campaign, hours before the Electoral Board gives the official the green light, and a posting of posters through the neighborhoods of Madrid. This is how Podemos has entered 28-M mode, with Ione Belarra covering its candidates in a community where entry into both the Assembly and the City Council is at stake. With the minister as master of ceremonies, the argument has been clear: take credit for the Government's achievements, attack its competitors and mobilize the vote against the PP.
“Everything that they told us that we could not do, that there was no legal security, that Europe would not let us… we have done all this,” claimed the general secretary of the purple, referring to the rise in wages, the Law of Housing, light limits and feminist laws. “The PSOE told us that it was demagogy,” he said.
The place chosen was the Plaza de la Asociación de Orcasitas (Madrid). There were the Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, the candidates for the Community and the City Council and a couple of regional representatives of Izquierda Unida and Alianza Verde. Not so the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, who was 420 kilometers away, in Asturias, asking for the vote for the candidacy that faces the purples in the regional elections (IU and Más Asturies).
[Yolanda Díaz and Belarra will campaign separately: they will not coincide in any act of 28-M]
“We started the electoral campaign in the Orcasitas neighborhood because it is precisely in Orcasitas where I started defending social justice as a lawyer,” said Alejandra Jacinto, a candidate for the Community of Madrid.. “We are on the right side of history. We summon you to that eviction on May 28 to get Ayuso out of the Community of Madrid,” he proclaimed.
Together with the mayoral candidate, Roberto Sotomayor, Jacinto represents La llave para Madrid —this is the name of the campaign slogan—, referring to the fact that both enter their respective chambers would be key to the result of the left. Currently, the CIS places them slightly above the 5% threshold, although internal polls are even more optimistic.
“The CIS comes to confirm what is being breathed in many neighborhoods: if Podemos-IU-AV enter the Madrid City Council with force, Almeida leaves. And I'm going to leave my skin to make this a reality. We are very close to ensuring that Madrid has a progressive government. Every day is a final of 1,500 and on March 28 that will of the neighborhoods will become law,” Sotomayor said.
The key to the campaign is clear to both: against all. If at one moment Belarra started that “the political, judicial and media right is not democratic”, the next he blamed his government partner for wanting to attribute “the advances of Podemos”. “In this campaign, all the parties are going to make many promises, they are going to say very similar things: the difference is that this, ours, is a political space that fulfills what it promises,” spurred the minister.
In contrast to the kinder character posed by its rivals in the political space, such as Más Madrid, the Podemos campaign has put all the meat on the grill. Slogans such as “Let the rich pay” or “The corruption of the PP must be audited” already appear in the party's electoral program, among many other slogans that the candidates repeated this Thursday.
Madrid is, along with Valencia, the key square in the regional elections for the purples, who will begin and end the campaign at both stops.