Spain’s left-wing Sumar held its second national conference on March 29–30, with its future already in doubt. In two recent polls, the junior partner in the country’s coalition government had lost over half its support since the 2023 general election (down from 12.3 percent to around 6). Even more worryingly, Público calculates that this would mean Sumar keeping only one-third of its seats — making it hard to see how one of Europe’s few broad-left governments could secure reelection.
The speed of Sumar’s unravelling is staggering, with Deputy Prime Minister Yolanda Díaz’s project to reorganize the radical left imploding after its initial solid election result in 2023. This collapse can partially be explained by internal contradictions. Sumar’s capacity to operate as a broad-left unity platform, intended to bring together scattered forces, was undermined from the start by factional warfare between Díaz and Podemos, the previously hegemonic force on the Spanish left.
Much of the political capital Díaz accumulated as a pro-worker labor minister has been squandered over the last two years on a high-stakes standoff with Podemos’s current leadership. In particular, her decision not to offer either Podemos’ Ione Belarra or Irene Montero a ministerial role in the coalition government’s second term gave their party the excuse it had been seeking to break with Sumar, just months after running under its banner in the 2023 election.
After this demoralizing split and a series of heavy losses in regional and European elections, Sumar suffered a body blow last October when a sexual misconduct scandal erupted around its key strategist Íñigo Errejón. His resignation and acknowledgement of abusive behavior toward female activists…
Auteur: Eoghan Gilmartin
