The general secretary of Comisiones Obreras, Unai Sordo, does not believe that Podemos’ absence from the Frente Amplio has any particular impact on the upcoming general elections of November 29, considering that the “mauves” have “very limited electoral relevance”.
In an interview with DEMÓCRATA, the general secretary of the country’s largest trade union confederation highlights that the formation of Frente Amplio and its pact with the PSOE to fight for an alternative majority to PP and Vox in the Senate entail “the largest democratic bloc of the last few decades in Spain”.
Asked about Podemos’ absence in the coalition led by Ada Colau, Sordo explains that this decision responds to a strategic battle of the “mauves”, but that its importance in electoral terms is lower.
“I think it’s all those who have some kind of electoral relevance,” Sordo assures. “Each group or party, with very limited electoral relevance, then plays its tactics, but it seems to me that the other thing is much more relevant,” Sordo argues, referring to the PSOE–Frente Amplio pact to coordinate candidate lists for the Senate.
In the view of the general secretary of Comisiones Obreras, this agreement “is what could be expected in terms of historical responsibility,” since without it he considers that there would not have been any possibility of competing electorally.
For Sordo, the alliances configured by the left ahead of the elections “is by no means the worst of the scenarios that could have happened”. “Surely a few months ago the scenario was much worse, and it’s true that the process, I think, has been clearly improvable,” he acknowledges. “Now it’s a matter of building an idea of a country that is capable of bringing together social majorities.”
Was the option of joining a project real?
On the other hand, during the interview Sordo acknowledges conversations about the possibility of joining a political project, as several media outlets reported.
“I’ve done a lot of rumor-mongering, but at this point in the film I’m not going to say anything that I haven’t said until now,” Sordo settles the matter, after commenting that he had “had conversations, more than about different parties in different circles”.
“My commitment was to remain in the union in this third term and in the end the facts have given me reason,” he concludes.