Sumar has suffered an electoral setback in these European elections by winning only three MEPs, with 4.65% of the votes (811,353 ballots) with 99.9% of the vote counted, which represents a hard setback for the minority partner of the Executive and can reopen internal tensions with its allies, given that IU, which was in fourth position, is left without a seat.

Meanwhile, Podemos resists in these elections, which it had presented as primaries within the alternative left, by obtaining two seats and 3.27% (571,784) of the votes cast with the help of its candidate, former minister Irene Montero. and stands up to the project led by Yolanda Díaz in the struggle they maintain after their breakup at the end of last year.

The joint result of the two candidates considerably worsens that obtained by Unidas Podemos (which grouped Podemos, IU and ‘comunes’) in 2019, given that they achieved 7.92% of the vote and five seats when five years ago the space achieved 10, 1% and six MEPs.

Both formations are very far from the balance obtained ten years ago when Podemos, which burst onto the political map with force at the hands of its former leader Pablo Iglesias, and IU achieved, although they presented themselves separately, 18% of the votes cast (more than 2.7 million) and 11 seats, leaving almost 800,000 votes behind the PSOE. Then, the purple ones got five seats and almost 8% (with more than 1.2 million votes) and IU six with 10% and (1.5 million votes).

In fact, Sumar remains at vote percentage levels that IU achieved in the 1999 European elections and Podemos in a volume similar to that achieved by this formation in 2004 (which translated into two seats).

It also represents a meager result for the alternative left compared to the last general elections of 23J, when the list shared by Sumar and Podemos obtained 12.33% of the vote cast (more than three million votes).

Sumar comes out weakened

The result for Sumar confirms its disastrous electoral cycle, which in the February Galician elections remained an extra-parliamentary force, only achieved one deputy in the regional elections of Euskadi and continued on a downward trend in Catalonia with the six ‘common’ seats (the most under its history).

The feelings in Sumar were not positive at the end of the campaign and on this election night they have confirmed that they have not reached their minimum expectations, which were four seats and fighting for the fifth to take on an upward trend.

In this way, Díaz’s project continues not to make his presence in the Executive profitable and in fact he emerges weakened from this appointment, given that his message of strengthening his position in the Government has not resonated with the left-wing electorate.

What’s more, it suffers a clamp from the PSOE by not being able to reverse the concentration of progressive votes of its coalition partner, and on the flank of Podemos, with a more critical speech and highlighting lack of progress so far in the legislature, it resists with two seats .

United Left, the great victim

It also means a setback for the second vice president, who has thrown herself into this electoral campaign with more than a dozen events to alleviate the handicap of opting for a head of the list, Estrella Galán, unknown to the electorate. In fact, Díaz has not attended her training headquarters at Espacio Larra in Madrid and has followed the scrutiny at the headquarters of the Ministry of Labor.

Furthermore, it represents a blow on the internal level for the Diaz project given that at this meeting he attended with his main allies although after tensions in the negotiation with his partners for the positions on the electoral list. However, emulating the bulk of the coalition at 23J has not been a factor in electoral revitalization and only Sumar (Estrella Galán), the ‘comunes’ (Jaume Asens) and Compromís (Vicent Marzà) get seats, while IU and Más Madrid does not enter the European Chamber by coming in fourth and fifth place.

The debacle impacts above all on IU, which prioritized unity although it criticized being relegated to fourth place on the list, which for the first time since the European elections took place will not have a seat in Brussels, when to date it had the minimum floor of two both alone and when he was part of the coalition with Podemos.

The bad result also comes in the middle of the organic construction process of Sumar after its first assembly in March and with the uncertainty about whether its allies will be part of the management bodies once this integration was paralyzed due to these elections and after the frictions with IU, which decided to suspend its entry into Sumar’s structures after complaining about its position on the list and which also expressed its disagreement with the 30% quota reserved by Sumar for the parties.

In the ranks of Sumar they believe that Podemos has resisted better than expected and that the characteristics of these elections, in which a Government is not elected, has encouraged their critical discourse to have seduced part of the electorate that would have supported them in a general election.

Meanwhile, Podemos takes breath with this result, after dragging an electoral decline since 2019, which has an air of revenge after months of internal struggle with Sumar, first denouncing the veto of Irene Montero on the general lists and then denouncing her exclusion from the Executive until the breakup.

To do this, they entrusted their future as a formation precisely to the former Minister of Equality, trusting in her strong pull in the left-wing electorate to rearm themselves, her political experience for a good performance in the debates and turning the organization into the commitment to the 9J, elections which they have been preparing for six months.

Its strategy, coinciding with its tenth anniversary and the milestone of its first presence in the European Parliament, has been supported by a message with an epic tone and prioritizing the emotional component along with the ideological one to lift up the purple formation. Thus, they have focused, for example, on censuring the “hypocrisy” of the Executive regarding the Palestinian cause (by not breaking relations with Israel), the denunciation of the “war-mongering” drift in the EU and the lack of ambition of the Executive of which They are not part.