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Spain: Ione Belarra in the running to replace Pablo Iglesias

one Belarra will soon replace Pablo Iglesias at the head of Podemos. Member of the ruling coalition, the Spanish radical left party is due to appoint, this Sunday, June 13, the successor of the current leader, who has led the political formation since its creation in 2014. 33-year-old Minister in charge of Social Affairs, this close d’Iglesias will take control of this party, heir to the anti-austerity movement of the Indignados. However, she will not be his candidate in the next legislative elections scheduled for January 2024 at the latest. A role that Iglesias has decided to entrust to the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Diaz.

Since Sunday and until Saturday, Podemos activists have been called upon to nominate their new number one while Iglesias announced his withdrawal from political life on May 4. This decision follows his dismal failure during the regional in Madrid, won by the right. The result of this vote will be unveiled at the very beginning of the afternoon, this Sunday, during a party congress in Alcorcon, a popular suburb of Madrid. Wishing to prove that he has taken a step back from the party, Iglesias will not be present at this congress.

The vote is already folded

However, the suspense is nonexistent, Ione Belarra presenting himself in front of two strangers. Member of the inner circle of Pablo Iglesias, she inherited her ministerial portfolio when he left the government in March to run for regional in Madrid. She is also number two on her list the companion of the former professor of political science, the Minister of Equality Irene Montero. “It’s a designation. […] She received the anointing of Iglesias ”, explains Paloma Roman, professor of political science at the Complutense University of Madrid, the same one where Pablo Iglesias taught.

Known for his ponytail until his hair cut after his retirement from politics, Pablo Iglesias has been the only chef Podemos has known since his founding in 2014. His reign without division at the helm of the formation resulted in friction and the departure of several founders of the formation such as his former right-hand man and friend Iñigo Errejon, who has since created Mas Pais, a rival formation on the left.

In an attempt to silence the critics, Ione Belarra promised “a much more collegial stage” within the party. But for the sociologist and historian Emmanuel Rodriguez, specialist in social movements and Indignants, it will be “very complicated” to carry out a “refoundation” for Ione Belarra while the training remains “totally conditioned by the needs of the old direction”.


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