In a particularly complex week for the Executive, in which Junts staged his breakthrough commitment in Congress, the leader of Izquierda Unida, Antonio Maíllo, claims to support the legislature despite the paralysis of the budgets and the blocking of the rest of the laws. In the draft of the Political Report to which EL PAÍS had access and which the Federal Coordinator of the IU – the highest body of debate and direction between the assemblies – will discuss this Sunday, the leader assures that there is a change in the mood of the left and calls for a process of “mobilization” to guarantee success in the electoral cycle that will open in Extremadura in December and always with an eye to the general elections. “There is no time to waste,” urges Maíllo.
The document celebrates the agreement reached to participate in an alliance with Podemos and Alianza Verde in Unidas por Extremadura and, among other things, accuses the PP of the screening crisis in Andalusia and the “negligent and insensitive” management of the Valencian government. He also criticizes the trial against the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz, which began this week. For Maíllo this case is part of the “judiciary’s offensive against the government”. “Let us not lose this perspective, nor the fact that it went from the case of a tax fraudster to an accusation against someone carrying out his role in law enforcement,” he adds.
“Something has changed in the mood of the Spanish left. There is no doubt that the massive mobilizations for Palestine against the genocide perpetrated by Israel, the solidarity with the flotilla in Gaza and the subsequent welcoming of its Spanish members have meant an awakening of the social left of our country”, perceives Maíllo, who claims that “only with a process of mobilization” can the “conditions for success” be met for the next elections, including the next general elections. “Izquierda Unida maintains its commitment on that broad front in which political organizations are part of the solution and create tools that incorporate as many people as possible individually, but that are co-participants in the most important decisions that are made”, and cites the political project that justifies the unity, the programmatic agreements and the primaries as a method for the election of the representatives who achieve it. “The time has come to accelerate this process and there are better conditions to do so. There is no time to waste,” he says.
Maíllo analyzes in his report one of the themes that have marked national politics in the last week: the threat of a blockade by Carles Puigdemont’s party on all government laws. “Junts announces his umpteenth move away from the approval of laws or legislative initiatives, but he knows that the materialization of his apparent break will only be achieved with a motion of censure and the adhesion of PP and Vox. The rest could be fireworks that do not change the maintenance of the Government, even if they could paralyze the approval of new laws and even that of the General Budgets.” Izquierda Unida, present in the Government with a ministry within Sumar, defends that the General Budget Law for 2026 be sent to Congress. “If this is the case, we are committed to ensuring that it is approved with the largest existing majorities, avoiding unwanted frameworks of increases in non-social expenditure to which we will be attentive”, he underlines, referring to the increase in military investments and inviting the presentation of bills that “cannot be rejected” and “weaken” those who do so.
“We also defend that failure to approve, in the worst case scenario, must not lead to the dissolution of the Cortes”, he assures.
On the electoral level, the leader refers to both the agreement in Extremadura and the negotiations for a candidacy in Castile and León and Andalusia and draws attention to the pact reached for the regional elections on 21 December, where the IU consolidates its position in the coalition which currently has four deputies in the Extremadura Parliament. For Maíllo it is an agreement “substantially better than the previous one, which goes from 33% to 45% of the coalition’s representative percentages, as well as a more balanced representation of deputies and workers”.
The IU also celebrates the approval of the decree on the arms embargo on Israel and shames Podemos for threatening to overturn it. “The short-term games of some political formations that threatened its approval were just that: frivolous games of bad politics, which in the end were not reflected,” he concludes.
