The federal coordinator of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maillo, has claimed that the “useful vote” in the next general elections should be directed to Frente Amplio with the aim of “re-enacting progressive governments.” He has described this coalition as a force that “we roll up our sleeves” to govern and that has managed to “turn the PSOE around” to undertake “structural changes” that, on its own, “dares not to do.”
Maillo spoke this Sunday in Pamplona during an information walk promoted by Frente Amplio Navarra, in which he was supported by the heads of list to the Congress and the Senate for the Community foral, Javier Ibáñez and Ane Sánchez, as well as by representatives of the different formations integrated in the alliance.
At the start of his appearance before the media, the IU leader lamented the recent death of three workers in Pitillas in a workplace accident. “We’re talking about 67 deaths across the whole year in the Basque Country and Navarre. We’re talking about one of the highest rates of workplace accidents,” he said, stressing that one of the priorities of Frente Amplio will be to place the fight against workplace accidents “front and center in the political debate.”
In his speech, Maillo stressed that Frente Amplio “has a country project” and embodies “the capacity of an alternative left that dares to take on the powerful sectors of the country.” In this regard, he contrasted his stance with “other lefts that are never going to commit to governing; we do, we roll up our sleeves.”
He also highlighted that “we have government experience in Navarre, which is an example of stability” and of “agreements.” He also emphasized the housing measures applied in the Community foral that “open paths of hope” with “a drop in prices,” which he put at 5%; as well as the declaration of stress zones, which “have allowed 70% of the population to benefit.”
Antonio Maillo insisted that “in the general elections the determining and distinctive factor of what is going to happen will be the result that Frente Amplio obtains.” In his view, “if people want to re-enact progressive governments and prevent the reactionary government of the Partido Popular and Vox from being able to take over the Government of Spain, they have to support Frente Amplio” because “we are going to determine the possibility that there will be a government.”
"The PSOE alone is not going to be", he has emphasized, adding that "the governing capacity we have is not going to be given to sovereignist or regionalist parties, or any other nature that will never be part of governments."
He has defined himself as part of "the left that gets wet, that rolls up its sleeves, that breaks through the ceilings of what until now had not been allowed," recalling that "they told us that a moratorium on rent renewals couldn’t be done, that the minimum wage couldn’t be raised, that public healthcare couldn’t be protected, or that dependency care couldn’t be doubled." "We’ve done it and we want to keep doing it because we’re not satisfied with where we’ve gotten to," he has stressed.
For this reason, he has reiterated that "the useful vote is for Frente Amplio because the greatest usefulness is what the vote is for." He has recalled that Pedro Sánchez made an agreement with Ciudadanos and that "whoever made the PSOE turn around" was Unidas Podemos and "now with Frente Amplio." "We are the ones who determine a structural change in reforms that the Partido Socialista is not daring to make," he has said. Along these lines, he has argued that the PSOE "dares not to take on" "the housing speculators" and he has recalled that "we had to stage a sit-in at the Council of Ministers so that the housing royal decrees would be approved."
He has again emphasized the "usefulness" of the vote for Frente Amplio, which, he said, will serve "to keep making structural reforms in the State" that the PSOE acting alone is not "capable of doing." At the same time, he has warned that PP and Vox "will roll back reforms and the conquests achieved."
Antonio Maillo has pointed out that Frente Amplio has "an ample space of people who will never vote for the PSOE, because they know it won’t get them anywhere." For this reason, he has stated his goal that the coalition reach "up to 15% support" so that "the character of boldness in the reform of the policies that have to be carried out, the bolstering of public pensions, the defense of public services" becomes "a guarantee with the support and presence of Frente Amplio in Congress and in the Government."
Criticism of Álvarez de Toledo’s "disdain for multilingualism"
Coinciding with the presence in Pamplona of PP deputy Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, Maillo has reproved her for her “contempt for plurilingualism” for calling for “eliminating the earphones of Congress.” “There are countries that would do whatever it takes to have the linguistic wealth that we have in Spain,” the federal coordinator of IA has emphasized, who has defended that “it is a wonder to have so many languages” and that the population perceives them as “a common heritage.”
In contrast to that position, he has gone after the “patriots” of “their pockets, their profits and million-dollar capital gains,” against “the extractivists, the housing speculators, those who profit at the expense of the suffering of the working class.” Likewise, he has urged Álvarez de Toledo to teach “a little bit of a class on the history of languages in Navarre and on co-official status and the coexistence of languages, which is the coexistence of society itself.”