The crucial moment in any debate is when it has to translate into a political decision. And there was a moment when we had to take a political decision on this issue.
That moment came with the 2018 no-confidence motion [against right-wing premier Mariano Rajoy]. This came after we had already presented a symbolic no-confidence motion in 2017, when we were level with the PSOE in the polls or even ahead of it.
I had a debate with a small group of comrades, in which we reached this conclusion: we would support a no-confidence motion that handed governmental office to the PSOE alone [so as to halt the Right’s advance at the height of the standoff around Catalan independence]. There was the possibility that we would be the biggest progressive force at the next election, as we were doing better in opposition [but the polls suggested the Right would win an outright majority].
But if we allowed the PSOE to govern alone, or a PSOE government with us in a much-reduced position — as ultimately happened — it would be difficult for us to reach a hegemonic position in the short term. We were conscious that we’d be handing Pedro Sánchez enormous electoral weight, for a long time, if we did that.
The key to the discussion was that, in a moment in which we were the main political force in the left-wing camp, we would have to assume that we would not govern for decades, even if we won the elections, because it was impossible that, given the present correlation of forces, they would allow us to govern. The only possibility of us being a governmental force would be to go in with the PSOE — with it having the biggest weight. This is full of risks, because they can try and do you damage anyway — as they are in fact doing — and because it’s much more difficult to obtain any electoral payoff when you are the minority partner. But at least it presents new possibilities.
This allows us to make up part of the leadership of the state, it allows us to form government cadres which we did not have, it allows us an understanding and a praxis in the state that you don’t get from local or regional governments. It allows us to take part — even if from a modest position — in crucial decisions on what direction the country should go in. We will always have to fight with one hand tied behind our backs while all our adversaries have a free hand — we will always have to face a media ecosystem weighed against us. We will have very powerful enemies. But again, we have to take a historian’s view and understand how political conditions have been in the past. Folks who think like us have always had to work hard.
We took the more difficult decision — it’s much more comfortable, even electorally, to be a permanent left opposition. What, historically, has been the main channel by which forces to the left of social democracy have built up electoral weight? Basically, criticizing it from the left.
But I believe that we have done something immensely important. We are the only force from — I’ll dare to say — our political tradition that is in the government of an EU country, indeed in the fourth biggest eurozone economy. In these nine months of government, we have already achieved things that would be enough for a whole parliamentary term. We would always like to have gone further, we always have criticisms from the left, as is normal.
But above all, we are forming state cadres. When I look at my team and how they got here, I see that even after only nine months, we have ever more people ever better prepared to govern this country. And we are young — a political force that reached government after existing for only six years. When you compare the average age of the Unidas Podemos ministers, secretaries of state, directors-general, and chiefs of staff, compared to the PSOE ones, there is a fifteen or twenty year difference. I think, in historical terms, we’ve done the right thing. It’s full of risks, of dangers; there’s no guarantee that it will turn out well. But even if the other option had turned out well, even if this had allowed us to overtake the PSOE, I think we would have found ourselves in a situation where they would never have allowed us to govern.