Last week Tony Blair professed bafflement at the rise – on both sides of the Atlantic – of popular movements by people who in Blair’s view choose to “rattle the cage”. I think this is a mischaracterisation. Those who have been energised into supporting Sanders, Corbyn and movements such as Podemos and Syriza want to break the cage, ending the failed policies that continue to dominate and distort so much of our national discourse. What these movements represent is a desire and hope for something better. I don’t think that is baffling at all. Continue reading
Tagged with Podemos
In Spain, election results are good news
Spains indignados made the move from city squares to the halls of power on Sunday in municipal and regional elections that saw an anti-poverty activist elected as mayor of Barcelona and the ruling Peoples Party (PP) battered at the ballot box, reports the Guardian.
Elections in thirteen regions and more than 8,000 municipalities saw sweeping gains for new left-wing alliances, as voters delivered their verdict on rampant corruption, a stagnant economy and vicious austerity. The two traditional parties, the ruling conservative PP and the opposition social democratic PSOE were reduced to just 52 percent of the vote.
The biggest victory of the night was for Ada Colau, an anti-eviction activist and leader of Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona in Common), who was elected mayor of Barcelona. Barcelona en Comú is a grassroots coalition of several parties and thousands of activists. It includes Podemos, the new radical left party, which was founded just over a year ago and won 5 MEPs in last years European elections. Continue reading
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Podemos is 3rd force Spanish elections – radical left triumphs in Barcelona
The upstart left party Podemos has claimed it is a “lever for change”, as it broke through in eight regions of Spain to become the third force in eight of the 13 regional parliaments contested.
“We would have liked to see a more rapid erosion of the large parties“, according to Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, who described this day as “magical” and “historic“. Continue reading
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Election should be about vision of new economic order – Is Labour ready?
It is ironic that the Tories, the enemies of ideology and avowed exponents of pragmatism, are starting this election with a much stronger ideological pitch than Labour, normally the proud presenter of an alternative vision. Osborne has gone on the offensive immediately by advocating the balanced budgeting and small state goals of the 1920-30s aimed at shrinking the State and consolidating the power of capital over labour, but which would cripple growth exactly as it did a century ago and restore the Downton Abbey society of that period. It is a hideous scenario and should be hammered to bits, but it does at least offer a scenario of the trajectory of Tory policy, were they to win. For Labour , against that background, the incentive to offer the vision of the new economic order should be compulsive. Continue reading
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“We are the vote for hope”: Interview with Pablo Iglesias of Podemos
He’s MEP of the European Left in the GUE-NGL grouping “that defends the dignity of the people and democracy”. He’s also leader of Spain’s Podemos movement, which to general surprise won 8% in the Continent-wide elections in May and is accredited in opinion polls today as the leading political force in the country with a 27% share of the vote. In short, the thirty-something Pablo Iglesias is becoming for the Spanish what Syriza’s Alexis Tsipras is for the Greeks: a public danger for austerity Europe, for Barroso and now Juncker. Interview with Italy’s Il Manifesto newspaper. Continue reading
