“I hope things go well for them. I wish them luck, but they shouldn't use us for a different strategy”. That is the warning that the Secretary of Organization of Podemos in the Canary Islands, César Merino, has launched to the councilors Ramiro Muñoz and Leticia Padilla, who have just announced that they are leaving the party, but without resigning from their positions in the city councils of Yaiza and Arrecife, where Padilla is released.
From the regional leadership they consider that “the ethical and correct thing” would be for them to resign from those positions and give way to the next on the list, but both have announced that they will not. For this reason, Merino has announced that they will send a letter to the state organization of the party and that when the resignations from membership are certified, they will go to the city councils to notify that these people “no longer represent Podemos” and that “they have to move to the group of non-attached members”.
“They have stopped representing the party for which they ran,” he stressed, adding that if the city councils do not heed their request and these two councilors do not leave the political group for which they ran in the elections, they are willing to go to court. “The municipalities law is clear,” defended the regional Secretary of Organization, who stresses that despite the fact that Padilla and Muñoz defend that they will continue working on behalf of Lanzarote en Pie, the reality is that these people are already “not integrated into any party”.
“Lanzarote en Pie is not a political party. It has no regulations, no statutes, no legal personality. It is a name of a coalition nothing more, but it has no legal entity,” he insisted, questioning that both councilors “seem to have acted in an organized manner” and with the aim of “damaging the party and legitimizing a political strategy.”
From “citizen platform” to name of the coalition
The name of Lanzarote en Pie emerged as a supposed citizen platform shortly before the last elections, although some of its most visible faces were members of Podemos, such as Nona Perera and Leticia Padilla herself, who was already a councilor of Arrecife for this party and also general secretary of the purple formation in the capital.
Later, that umbrella was used to try to unite several left-wing parties on the island, such as Somos Lanzarote, Izquierda Unida and Alternativa Ciudadana, although it ultimately did not prosper, and the alliance ended up uniting only Podemos and Equo, who presented themselves under the name of Lanzarote en Pie – Sí Podemos. In fact, from IU they came to accuse Podemos of having "set up" Lanzarote en Pie to negotiate outside the confluence table that had been created between all the formations.
Now, from the regional leadership they believe that the positions that have announced that they are leaving Podemos intend to use that brand to constitute themselves as a new party or coalition for the next elections, but they insist that they cannot use it now, to finish the mandate under the name of a party that currently does not exist as such, and that is why they will demand that they move to the group of non-attached members.
“We can understand that they are personal decisions and we respect them, of course, but what does not fit within a party is this. That they come to say now that Podemos does not represent them, seems to me a way of evading responsibility. Podemos is not there to represent elected officials, it is the elected officials who have to represent Podemos, and its policy and its commitments in the institutions in which it is”, questioned the regional Secretary of Organization.
In addition, César Merino also considers unfounded the main argument they have given for their departure, which is the “lack of communication” within the purple formation. In this regard, he has acknowledged that meetings have not been held, except for some telematics with certain groups, but he has attributed this to the pandemic. In fact, he has also questioned the moment chosen by the councilors and the fact that they have gone out to make statements in the media to announce their resignation from Podemos, when he understands that “we are not here to waste time with our little things”, given the current “health, social and economic crisis”.
“It seems a bit excessive to say that I resign because there is a lack of communication or because I have not been able to speak with him,” he questioned in reference to Ramiro Muñoz, also stressing that the current leadership “has only been in place for three months”. “It seems to me that there are other things underlying”, he reiterated.
An “open wound” since the previous internal crisis
In the case of Muñoz, he himself has explained on Radio Lanzarote-Onda Cero that his discomfort comes from the previous crisis in Podemos, coinciding with the past elections. At that time the three councilors of the Cabildo announced that they were leaving the party, with Carlos Meca at the head, who had been the general secretary of Podemos on the island since its creation. And with him the entire island leadership and also other members of the party left, including the then councilor of Arrecife Daniel Cabecera.
Ramiro Muñoz, who has recalled that with Meca he had “weekly communication”, decided to stay and repeated as a candidate in Yaiza, although he now says that since then there has been no communication with the party. “What a lack of confidence they will have in me and I in them, when we have not had any contact”, he pointed out with respect to the current councilors of Podemos in the Cabildo, Miriam Barros and Jorge Peñas, who in reality did not belong to the purple formation nor did they participate in the primaries.
For his part, the regional Secretary of Organization acknowledges that there is still an “open wound”. “We know where we are, we know that there have been problems in the past and that we have to deal with all this, but we believe that we are on the right path to alleviate all that tension that was experienced in the past. There are people who do not want to turn the page, but we insist that we have to do it, because we have to go to strong elections and with a cohesive party”, he defended.
However, in the case of Leticia Padilla, her departure from Podemos has nothing to do with that first major crisis. In fact, at that time she was one of the opponents of Meca's leadership, who ended up leaving the party after losing by one vote the primaries to repeat as a candidate for the Cabildo.
The militants who left with him at that time denounced that the regional leadership had had "clear interference to try to condition the result” of those primaries and that, in addition, “to achieve that objective, it allowed people outside the party to mark the future of Podemos on the island and even openly encouraged them to register and vote", since anyone could do so. In fact, he pointed out that in those primaries "there was an evident participation of members of other parties with whom Nona Perera's candidacy promised a supposed confluence and, to make matters worse, she herself acknowledged that she had even received votes from people from Coalición Canaria and the Partido Popular", which ended up marking a very tight vote.
Now, precisely one of the defenders of that attempt at confluence - which ended only with the union to Equo under the name of Lanzarote en Pie - is the one who leaves Podemos, in what is a new break in the party, now within the 'side' that prevailed in the first crisis.
The road to the next elections
As for Ramiro Muñoz, although this Tuesday he has assured that he had not previously spoken with Leticia Padilla about his decision, the truth is that the two have taken the same step in less than 24 hours.
In addition, both have used the same arguments, and both affirm that they will continue “working with Lanzarote en Pie”. Regarding whether he intends to run in the next elections under a new acronym, Muñoz has not confirmed it, but he has not ruled it out either: “If I have left a marriage, don't ask me about a marriage in two years. From here to two years I don't know, let's let time pass”.
For its part, despite the setback that the formation had on the island in the last elections - after having even won some elections to the Senate - the regional Secretary of Organization assures that Lanzarote continues to be for Podemos “a bastion” and that they continue “betting” and “trusting” in the party on the island.
As for the next elections, he has not wanted to venture how they will compete, although for some time they have been trying to strengthen the Podemos brand and do not rule out running again under its name. “I won't say no, but I won't say yes either. I think the brand is important, but it is also true that the confluence space is very important, especially in the Canary Islands. We have always tended to divide ourselves among ourselves and it is important to unite, but it is true that there has to be a sense and a commitment. It is not worth it that after this is done, everyone pulls to one side. That is what breaks the rope”, questioned César Merino.