And Yolanda Díaz got wet. Not because of the DANA, which covered the city of Alicante with intense rain throughout the morning, but later, in the afternoon, when the sky cleared and Héctor Illueca appeared in the city. The leader of Sumar made this Wednesday the most significant act of support for Podemos in the entire campaign, when she came to the rescue of the candidate for the Valencian Community, which is one of the regions that is in a critical situation for the formation of Ione Belarra. Where the purples not only decide whether or not to enter a regional government, but are also risking their own survival.
Unides Podem walks erratically on the precipice of 5%, which is the border in percentage of votes that delimits the entry into the Valencian Parliament and that could determine for better or worse the continuity of the Botànic Pact with the PSOE and Compromís. A recent Sigma Dos poll for EL MUNDO estimated that Illueca's candidacy is really in a hurry, with 5.2% of the votes, which is such a tight margin that the ball, as in the movie Match Point, could fall for any side.
Aware of this extreme situation, and that the progressive government of Ximo Puig depends on a handful of votes, Díaz put aside his reluctance with Podemos and got fully involved in the campaign for Illueca, despite the fact that the Valencian Community means for her political space 'Compromís territory', a force with which she not only maintains an evident harmony and which is an ally of Sumar, but also the personal circumstance that she has great affection for her regional candidate, Joan Baldoví .
Despite this, the second vice president assumed long ago that she had to get involved with Podemos in at least one of the strategic enclaves this 28-M. It was choosing between the Community of Madrid, where the purple party rivals her friend Mónica García (Más Madrid), or the Valencian Community, where at least she justifies that she is defending the continuity of the progressive government, whose reissue also benefits Compromís.
In his act he was forceful. Díaz stressed that 28-M “is settled” in this region. “You have a great responsibility, the game is played here”, he exclaimed, to then underline that the “guarantee” of the existence of the Botanic and that it continue to be governed “for the common people” has “names and surnames: Héctor Illueca “.
“I ask you to vote,” he said, and made a “call for the concentration of the vote” and to take advantage of the “opportunity to democratically defeat” the PP. “That vote is called Unides Podem and that vote is called Héctor Illueca,” he insisted, in the most involved version of the vice president with Podemos.
Díaz pointed out that his “dear Héctor” represents “useful politics” and put him on the same plane as Ada Colau, his great ally, when he gave both of them an example of having turned housing “into a fundamental right” with their work in the institutions. In his case, the Valencian Generalitat as vice president.
vote hemorrhage
Díaz arrived in Alicante with the challenge of plugging the hemorrhage of votes suffered by Unides Podem in the Community, where almost half of its voters declare themselves willing to change. Some 100,000 people according to the aforementioned Sigma Dos survey. Of them, there are some 30,000 who are still undecided and to whom Díaz questioned emphatically.
That Díaz's appearance is in Alicante and not in Valencia has its substance. The province is where Unides Podem is encountering more problems to mobilize, and where its representation could fall in a greater proportion. Here he won three seats in 2019 and now he goes out of his way to retain at least one. In the same way, it happens that the Alicante constituency is the least harmful for Compromís and in which the IU has the most roots.
On the other hand, Podemos brings out all the artillery for the end of the campaign. Pablo Iglesias, who until now had played a more secondary role with two brief appearances in the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands, puts on his shoes again to step on rallies of maximum strategic value.
The former secretary general will do a double to reinforce the options of Podemos in the Community of Madrid and in the Valencian Community. This Thursday he will participate in an act with Alejandra Jacinto and Roberto Sotomayor in the capital and at the end of the campaign he will do his own with Illueca and Pilar Lima in Valencia.