The MEP and head of the list of Podemos for the general elections on 29 November, Irene Montero, has blamed the Government for a "premeditated" increase in "police violence" against the mobilizations in the street.
As she has pointed out, in the last few weeks it has been observed in Spain "an increase in premeditated police violence, which seeks to scare people who want to mobilize so that they don't do it" and she has directly pointed "at the Government of PSOE and the Frente Amplio", as she stated this Sunday after taking part in the XXII Congress of the Sindicato de Estudiantes.
Montero has insisted that "we always see police violence in the same direction" and she added that "it is exercised against students in struggle, against teachers in struggle, against unionists who defend labor rights". By contrast, she emphasized that "it is never seen that they mistreat fascist agitators like Vito Quiles", nor that this violence is applied "when there are racists who are putting the lives of people and the migrant neighbors at risk".
In her view, the repression "is a mechanism to prevent people from organizing, so that people are afraid to use tools, such as a strike or demonstrations".
For this reason, she urged people to take part in the strike called for 11 November and demanded that the streets be "filled" so that the day is "massive". She stressed that the strike "has to paralyze the country for the right to housing, against the cost of living" and she identified as the main those responsible for the housing crisis "first of all the vulture funds" and also the "state Government and the regional governments that have done absolutely nothing to resolve it".
Electoral debate and call to vote
In relation to the general elections of 29N, the Podemos leader has emphasized that, in this context, she considers it key "that young people organize and fight" and she has outlined three possible scenarios. The first, she indicated, would be "going back decades in rights" with a government of PP and Vox; the second, the one represented by PSOE and Frente Amplio, would be "for everything to stay as it is".
Against these alternatives, she has defended a "plurinational, republican, antifascist proposal" that "starts from the alliance between Gabriel Rufián" and Podemos and with which, as she explained, they intend to convey that there is "a right to dream of a better world".
When asked about the call to vote strategically, she has responded that "strategic voting is the Socialist Party's strategy for eating up its left." She has argued that "for things to change and for there to be more rights, you have to vote to the left" and has criticized that PSOE and PP "unfortunately vote the same" when measures are debated to make rents cheaper or the price of food.
Criticism of the PP, military spending, and the position on Gaza
With regard to the words of Alberto Núñez Feijóo in an interview published this Sunday, in which the PP leader refers to the law of 'only yes is yes', Montero has said that "they want to destroy feminist rights" and has accused PP and Vox of devoting "all their efforts to ridiculing the feminist movement". For this reason, she has also called for taking up public space on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.
"It is incredible that in this country there are still political parties that want to govern against more than half of the population, which is women, and the message to Feijóo is very clear: his chauvinism kills," she said.
Prompted by the death of a military officer during a training exercise in Zaragoza, reported this Saturday, she has demanded "maximum caution" and conveyed "care and respect to the family members of this officer".
In line with this issue, she has taken the opportunity to criticize that the Government, with "zero budgets approved in this legislature", has nonetheless reached "36,000 million euros in military spending without a single vote in Congress" and has demanded that those resources "from citizens be for schools and for hospitals, not for weapons".
Finally, Montero has returned to the situation in Gaza, where, she said, "a genocide continues that prevents the entry of humanitarian aid." She has denounced that the rains have caused "70,000 absolutely flooded tents" and has accused "the European governments, also the Government of Spain" of continuing to be "accomplices".