The general secretary of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has demanded this Friday in Zaragoza that citizens go to the polls with a “courageous” vote, that they not be pulled along by “the useful vote hoax,” and that they back those who, “truly, can make things happen.”
Belarra has thus claimed “the republican alliance” led by Irene Montero (Podemos) and Gabriel Rufián (ERC). “Vote for those who dare, for those who are going to do what they say, because everyone puts very pretty things in electoral programs, but the political quality of people is measured by their ability to make those programs a reality.”
“Both Irene and Gabriel have shown that they are people you can trust and, above all, that they are willing to pay the price they make you pay for changing things in this country, which we already know is very high; we saw it another day with those baton strikes, baton strikes, and baton strikes against the people who were demonstrating—during the general strike—about housing, and on top of that today having to put up with the president of the Government saying that Marlaska is his right-hand favorite.”
She has underlined that in the current legislature “four votes have done much more than hundreds and hundreds of votes from other political parties,” citing as an example “without going any further that regularization of migrant people that Podemos achieved with its four votes,” she stressed.
Three options at the polls
Ione Belarra has argued that “in these elections it seems like there are many electoral options, many ballots, but in reality people are going to choose between three things.”
First, she mentioned “the ballot of PP and Vox, which in reality is the same because they are going to govern together and we already know what it brings: They are going to privatize pensions, they are going to lower the minimum wage, they are going to try to do away with women’s right to abortion; they are going to make it very difficult for our town and for our people, and we can’t allow that.”
The second alternative, she continued, is that of the PSOE and the Broad Front, “which throughout the entire legislature has carried out the biggest rearmament in the history of this country, 11,000 million euros that have been spent just this week on weapons and tanks.”
According to Belarra, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez “what it proposes to the people is more of the same, that there continues to be more of the same, but more of the same is not what the people want” because “homes are through the roof, the price of housing is unaffordable, people can no longer buy even eggs or yogurts at the supermarket and we have a very rich one percent in this country that is getting rich, like Repsol, Mercadona, Banco Santander, which are making a fortune without the Government doing absolutely anything”.
Expropriate the vulture funds
The top of the list for Podemos to the Congress for Zaragoza, Alicia Arteaga, has called for urgent measures to intervene in housing, including expropriating vulture funds and setting by law a 40 percent reduction in the price of rent.
In statements to the media, the candidate for Zaragoza has denounced that “it can’t be that in Aragon people can’t buy a home, that even with a job we can’t make ends meet, that people don’t have enough to fill the fridge”.
“We have to prohibit the purchase of homes for speculation,” Arteaga has demanded, concluding: “We can’t keep going like this; people deserve to live with dignity and, of course, this can’t be done like this”.