Sumar has closed ranks with the PSOE against the hypothesis of an early election that the PNV suggested yesterday and which has gained wide acceptance at the start of this week in Madrid. And it has done so not only to claim the continuity of the legislature but also to demand that its partner accelerate the pace and turn the remaining two years of the mandate into a stage of recognizable reforms. This was endorsed by the general coordinator of Movimiento Sumar, Lara Hernández, during a meeting organized by Nueva Economía Fórum, which also took the opportunity to launch a proposal with a strategic vocation. To convene after the summer “a great national meeting of all the lefts of this country” that serves as the embryo of a future candidacy for the next general elections.
In the midst of turmoil in the progressive space due to the indictment of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the Plus Ultra case, Hernández has tried to combine two messages. A distancing from the PSOE on corruption matters and a firm defense of the continuity of the coalition government to outright reject the thesis put forward this Sunday by the president of the PNV, Aitor Esteban, who had warned that the legislature was at risk of dragging on “aimlessly” and had opened the door to an early election.
“We have a year to continue promoting useful policies,” Hernández said, in an intervention marked by the idea that the immediate alternative to the current government would be a PP and Vox government. “What is just around the corner is the right,” she warned, before asking the investiture partners “to be up to the moment.” In that context, she demanded that the PSOE “take seriously” the remaining time of the legislature and accelerate some of the main social flags of the coalition agreement, especially in housing matters. Among them, she mentioned the recovery of the decree for the extraordinary extension of rental contracts.
The Sumar coordinator thus presented a position that links with the message also conveyed by the spokesperson of EH Bildu, Arnaldo Otegi, in La Vanguardia to exhaust the legislature, but doing so “by endowing it with a plurinational program”.
In the Sumar environment, there is concern that a mere resistance strategy ends up feeding the demobilization of a progressive electorate already hit by the wear of the government and by the poor results of the confederal space in several regional elections. Hence Hernández wanted to go one step further and already focus on the reorganization of the board to the left of the PSOE. At a moment of extreme electoral weakness after the setback suffered in Andalusia — where the candidacy supported by Sumar maintained representation but was widely surpassed by Adelante Andalucía — the leader proposed opening a “frank, open and borderless debate about the country.” The idea, she explained, is to hold after the summer “general states of the left of the future” that allow building “a horizontal and inspiring space.”
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The leader, however, avoided turning that process into an immediate debate about leaderships. “The task of seeking leadership cannot be the main one,” she said. The coalition formed by Movimiento Sumar, Más Madrid, IU and the commons still lacks a clear candidate for the general elections planned, in principle, for 2027.
Asked about the offer from the spokesperson of ERC in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, to lead a possible unity candidacy, Hernández asked him for “concreteness.” “If it is a path to explore, let Mr. Rufián be the one to move forward,” she joked, recovering the expression used by the republican leader. But immediately afterwards she wanted to downplay any personalist reading: “I believe in collective projects.”
The other major argumentative line of the morning was the attempt to distance from the PSOE regarding corruption. Hernández claimed that Sumar has made its “red lines” clear both in the Koldo case and after Zapatero’s indictment and insisted that her political space does not intend to “carry anyone’s backpacks.” “Our backpack is light,” she summarized. According to her, the forces that make up Sumar have not governed “to warm seats,” but to promote social measures from a “discreet” but useful position within the government.
Even in that context, Hernández insisted that the government “will go on.” She also denounced a “large-scale operation” to delegitimize the government from the start of the legislature and challenged the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to present a motion of no confidence if he considers there are enough supports to overthrow the coalition government.
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