The confluence of the left and Adelante Andalucía pay their division into two candidates in seats

The fall occurs both in the percentage of the vote and in seats, but it is especially relevant in the number of representatives, something directly linked to the fact that these two left-wing options have presented two lists in each of the eight Andalusian provinces.

In 2018, the unitary coalition Adelante Andalucía obtained 16.19% of the votes and 17 seats. Going separately, the sum of Por Andalucía and Adelante Andalucía remains, however, with 12.31% of the support, 24% less than four years ago. But, in seats, that sum only obtains seven, 59% less than when they concurred together.

After the debacle, the candidate of Por Andalucía, Inma Nieto, has promised her voters that all the members of the space will make the “unity” of Podemos, IU, Más País and three other political forces represented by the coalition “more robust”. “The adversary yesterday was the right, today it is the right, and tomorrow it will be the right. It is their policies that will concentrate our efforts on the opposition,” she assured.

“Wide victory for the right in Andalusia. The artifacts and ideas of the new cycle are still missing. Congratulations to those who have given everything to defend fair ideas. Stumble, get up, learn and do better”, added Íñigo Errejón, in a tweet.

Rodríguez calls for “a new period” of “understanding” on the left

“From now on, a new period can be reopened in which we understand each other with the rest of the left from our own space,” said Teresa Rodríguez, also alluding to that division with the United We Can space. “We came from a very difficult situation, they had kicked us out of the parliamentary group,” recalled Rodríguez, who criticized part of the left that, in his opinion, should do “examination of conscience”: “They have put more effort into leaving us out than into confront the right and extreme right”.

With those words, the Adelante Andalucía candidate tried to explain that this Sunday’s photo comes after the successive crises that have been experienced on the left, also in this community. First was the rupture between United We Can and the Anticapitalist current headed by Rodríguez, who was expelled from the Adelante Andalucía parliamentary group in October 2020, while she was on maternity leave, due to her criticism of the central government’s policies.

That exit caused a fight over the acronym in the courts that Rodríguez ended up winning, who kept the Adelante Andalucía brand, which, before the electoral call, ruled out from the beginning rejoining his destiny to United We Can and has attended separately.

The creation of Por Andalucía was, for its part, marked by the reproaches between Podemos and IU in the negotiation of the candidacy and, above all, by the error and the economic consequences –mainly, access to subsidies– that meant that finally the alliance headed by the candidate for the Presidency of the Board Inmaculada Nieto registered without the name of Podemos when there were barely three minutes left before the deadline for presenting coalitions.

state support

The result of this Sunday in Andalusia also reflects that United We Can has not managed to make its action in the coalition government profitable at the polls, just as it happened in February in the elections in Castilla y León, when it went from two to one seat .

From the beginning, the Por Andalucía coalition had the support of the Second Vice President of the Government and Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, who came to mediate between Podemos and IU in the face of the conflict that arose at the birth of the coalition to try to maintain the unity of the space, and became involved in the campaign by participating in three mass events. In addition, she involved the reconciliation of Podemos and Más País in the same candidacy for the first time after the 2019 schism that caused the rupture between Pablo Iglesias and Íñigo Errejón, who ended up leaving Podemos and founding his own.

In the last two weeks, Por Andalucía tried to convey a unitary image and Díaz shared the stage with the Minister of Social Rights and leader of Podemos Ione Belarra. Díaz’s team saw the experiment of Por Andalucía as a “first step” of the project that could be headed by the also Minister of Labor in the face of the general elections, although they insist on separating it from ‘Sumar’, the listening process that will begin the July 8 in Madrid and which aims to relegate political forces to the background to give “all the protagonism” to citizens and social movements. The environment of the vice president tries to distinguish the bad result of the coalition, this Sunday, from the future political project of the vice president.

Waiting for Yolanda Diaz

The leadership of Podemos, however, openly acknowledges that the debacle in Andalusia will be interpreted as a first failure of the head of Labor, given her involvement in the campaign. Her presence in three rallies has tripled the one she had in the Castilla y León elections last February.

Since the electoral call in Andalusia became known, Díaz has been taking the first steps towards his state candidacy and announced ‘Sumar’ already in the pre-campaign. She also assured in the first of the rallies in which she was present, in Córdoba, that she was willing to “take a step to win Spain”. Her team insists, however, that this does not mean that she has already made the decision to present herself as a candidate for the Presidency of the Government, but simply reflects her “illusion” of her for the listening process.