Pablo Iglesias, Secretary General of Podemos. Marcos del Mazo/Demotix. All rights reserved
In a recent article on Open Democracy, Barcelona-based activist and theater director Simona Levi invited Podemos’ leadership to adopt a non-hegemonic attitude toward the civic lists that won the recent municipal elections in Spain. Claiming that the affirmation of Barcelona en Comú, Ahora Madrid, and other civic lists is in continuity with the “transversal” spirit of the 15-M movement, Levi invited Podemos’ Secretary General Pablo Iglesias to refrain from using these successes to promote his party’s agenda.
To back her claims, Levi noted how, in the city of Madrid alone, Ahora Madrid won 519,000 votes, almost double those won by Podemos (287,000) in the regional election on the same day. Similar results in the rest of Spain suggest that while Podemos is indeed an important player in the renewal of the Spanish political class, it is by no means the only one. As Jordi Vaquer has recently noted, the rise of Ciudadanos and the resilience of the PSOE in many regions pose a veritable dilemma for Podemos vis-à-vis the general elections of November.
