Podemos has responded to the latest offer from the Frente Amplio with a counterproposal focused on reaching territorial agreements, excluding Madrid and Catalonia, the two constituencies where the coalition of Ada Colau had offered the purple formation priority candidacies.
The response comes after the Frente Amplio sent this Friday, past 21:30 hours, a written proposal to incorporate Podemos into the coalition with full rights, guarantee representation on the lists of Madrid and Catalonia, and allow it to designate one of the spokespersons of the future parliamentary group.
However, Podemos insists on a formula of agreements by autonomous communities and asks to focus efforts on the territories where it considers that the conversations are more advanced.
"We propose to concentrate on agreeing on the territories that, like Extremadura, Euskadi, Cantabria, Galicia, or Murcia, already have agreements made or very advanced that are being blocked by the leadership of the Frente Amplio. It is essential to go together in those territories so that not a single leftist vote is lost," the purple formation states in its response.
To these five territories, it adds another six where it also considers it possible to reach an understanding: Andalusia, Castilla y León, Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, Navarra, and La Rioja.
Podemos demands autonomy for territorial organizations
The counterproposal focuses on the negotiations that the autonomous structures of the parties maintain, especially Podemos and Izquierda Unida, although also Movimiento Sumar in some communities.
"Our proposal for all those territories is to allow the agreements that the territorial organizations, mainly Podemos and Izquierda Unida, and in some also Sumar, are already advancing, both in programmatic proposals, resources, and representativeness in the composition of the lists and spokespersons," the document states.
Podemos suggests that the state leaderships accompany these conversations to ensure a distribution that they consider balanced among the participating organizations, instead of subordinating the territorial agreements to a general negotiation.
The formation cites as an example the understandings reached in the Canary Islands and the Valencian Community, where Podemos has agreed to run alongside other leftist forces.
Madrid and Catalonia, out of the counterproposal
The response represents a substantial difference regarding the offer conveyed by the Frente Amplio. While the coalition had proposed the integration of Podemos in all the constituencies in which it runs, the purple formation limits its counterproposal to certain territorial agreements and does not include Madrid or Catalonia.
The negotiation thus enters its final hours with two different formulas on the table: a broader incorporation of Podemos into the Frente Amplio or a series of shared candidacies in those communities where the organizations consider understanding viable.
The exchange occurs just a few hours before the deadline to communicate the electoral coalitions for the general elections on November 29, so any agreement must be finalized before the closure of the planned calendar.