MadridUnlike Podemos, which has gone on the attack against the PSOE with the Ábalos case, Sumar strikes a balance to distance itself from the corruption that sprinkles its coalition partner without ceasing to make a common front with the party with which it has to continue to rule The freedom of the purple party now that it is no longer part of the Spanish executive contrasts with the prudence of Sumar’s leaders. What can also be an opportunity to scratch voters of the main party of the progressive bloc, can be turned against those of Yolanda Díaz because her project depends on the continuity of Pedro Sánchez. This is why the second vice-president of the Spanish government has censured the behavior of the ex-Minister of Transport, but has not extended the condemnation to the socialists.
In a press conference this Thursday at the Ministry of Labor, which shares a building with the one headed by José Luis Ábalos at the beginning of the pandemic, Díaz made an allegation against “the cycle of corruption”. “You can imagine how I feel thinking that there were people next door who while we were gambling with our lives […]was he stealing?”, he raised while defending, as his party has been doing for months, to adopt new mechanisms to prevent these practices. However, Díaz warned that he would not draw blood either. “I will not make any more assessment than this. I think that’s enough,” he continued.
This assessment of Díaz came the day after the leader of Podem, Ione Belarra, used a similar argument during the control session in Congress. “I am deeply indignant that while some of us were trying to introduce the freezing of rent prices in the social shield, there were people in your government putting their hand in the box,” he told Sánchez. Díaz, for his part, claimed that during the same period she was enabling the ERTE mechanism. Now, Belarra added a jab at the Spanish president: “To be left-wing is to leave corruption behind once and for all,” he warned.
Save soldier Sánchez?
Sumar is said not to want to play the game for the PP, which is all against Sánchez with this issue. In fact, the second vice-president predicted that the complaint filed by Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s people against the party led by Sánchez “is doomed to failure”. “There is a progressive government for a while,” warned Díaz, who advises the PP “to return to its presumed social turn and start working for the good of the country.” The decision to go to court when there are no solid indications that the PSOE was involved shows, in his opinion, that the popular people “have nothing left”.
Podemos, that as Díaz was part of the Council of Ministers when Ábalos committed the alleged irregularities, sees it in another way. According to the purple party, it is “unbelievable” that the president of the Spanish government was unaware of the behavior of his “right-hand man”. At the very least, the formation reacted this Monday, more explanations would be needed from Sánchez and, if the judicial investigation proves that Ábalos participated in the plot, the assumption of responsibilities at the “highest level” within the PSOE. Two days later, former Equality Minister Irene Montero went a step further and demanded that Sánchez take responsibility for returning “every public euro” stolen.
The spokesman for Sumar, Ernest Urtasun, distanced himself this Monday from the requests of Podemos and considered the explanations given by Sánchez within the Spanish government to be sufficient and insisted on disassociating the Ábalos case from the current coalition. And from Congress, Íñigo Errejón reiterated this Thursday that the PP complaint has no basis and does not compromise the future of the PSOE-Sumar executive. At the same time, in statements before a meeting of the parliamentary group in the lower house with Díaz present, Errejón defended that “the questions of the PSOE must be answered by the PSOE” and asked “not to return to the mire of bipartisanship “.
