Surprise in Spain: “I am leaving all my posts, I am leaving politics”, announced Pablo Iglesias

MADRID.- After the overwhelming victory of the President of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, in the regional elections in Madrid, United We Can candidate Pablo Iglesias announced he would quit politics. “I quit all my posts, I quit politics understood as party policy and institutional policy, ”he said. “I will remain attached to my country, but I will not be an obstacle to the renewal of leadership,” added the left-wing leader.

Iglesias, who had already left the executive of Socialist President Pedro Sánchez in March to compete in Madrid and try to revive his party, said that “When you stop being useful, you have to know how to withdraw”.

Díaz Ayuso, the People’s Party (PP) candidate for re-election, swept the regional elections by winning 65 deputies, four by an absolute majority, according to the results with more than 95% of the votes counted. She only needs Vox’s abstention to be re-elected president. The conservative party exceeds the sum of the left bloc, which has 58 seats.

By entering politics, Pablo Iglesias had sought to revolutionize the left in a Spain mired in austerity by shouting “Yes, it is possible!” A 42-year-old political science professor, he has been the undisputed protagonist of Spanish politics since the creation in 2014 of the radical leftist formation Podemos, heir to the indignados movement and the massive anti-austerity protests of 2011.

After years of pursuit of power, in January 2020 he entered government as one of the vice-presidents of socialist Pedro Sánchez. Barely a year later, he baffled the country by resigning to run in the regional elections in Madrid and trying to save his party’s furniture in a stronghold that initially smiled on them. The risky bet ended in resounding failure. Despite the high turnout, left-wing parties were overtaken by the right in the capital region, which has governed it for 26 years, and Podemos had to settle for fifth place and 7% of the vote.

Ayuso stepped out onto the balcony of the PP headquarters and exclaimed: “Freedom has triumphed again in Madrid! Vox obtains 13 deputies, with whom its union with the PP exceeds the 69 seats necessary to reach the absolute majority (69 seats out of 136). Santiago Abascal, leader of Vox, announced that they would support the inauguration of Ayuso without demanding to enter the government. The left bloc is in opposition again, with the worst result in the history of the PSOE in Madrid, which drops from 37 seats to 24, the same as Más Madrid, who already surpasses him in votes as the second party . United We can go from 7 to 10. The citizens do not reach the threshold of 5% of the votes and find themselves without representation.

DPA and El País Agency

THE NATION