Alberto Rodríguez, former secretary of the Organization of Podemos, has repeated more clearly and publicly something that he had already announced in several meetings and contacts in Tenerife: he intends to organize and lead a radical left force “of Canarian obedience” that would participate in the next regional elections and premises of May 2023. Rodríguez continues to try to recover the seat from which he was dispossessed by a Supreme Court ruling after a trial that he considers took place without due guarantees, a legal farce in which he was convicted “without evidence.” His is a position as respectable as it is debatable. But after his announcement, it is legitimate to ask what would happen if Rodríguez regained his seat. He no longer militates in Podemos. And he intends to promote the creation of a new political organization with which to present himself in the next elections. The amazing thing is that those who enthusiastically shout “transfuge!” every time they see Vidina Espino it seems absolutely normal, plausible and even praiseworthy that Rodríguez recovers a seat to play politics from a party other than the one he was elected to. And even -perhaps- to compete electorally for the votes of the island’s left with his former colleagues. A server modestly considers that a reinforced concrete face is necessary to defend such a scandalous opportunism. But for many, Mr. Rodríguez enjoys a kind of bull because of the superstitious belief that someone is always right for having been right once.
In Madrid the pressure is increasing for Podemos to occupy the seat – the next on the electoral list of United We Can for the province of Tenerife is Fátima González, of the United Left – and Rodríguez’s recent statements will undoubtedly accelerate the intentions of renewal. The grace – or the ambition — of Don Alberto Rodríguez was about to cost the approval of the labor reform and – as is known – only the wrong vote of a sesteante deputy from the PP made it possible. Each vote will count in the remaining year and a half of the legislature, and not only for the validation of the decree laws – the preferred way of governing of Pedro Sánchez and his team – but even for the approval – highly unlikely – of the general budgets of the State for 2023. In this context, an empty seat is reckless. And a democratically embarrassing show.
The horizons of a new left-wing party in the Canary Islands – even in Tenerife – are certainly narrow. United We Can Canary Islands has not stopped losing votes in the last eight years, and this despite the agreement between Podemos, Izquierda Unida and Sí se puede, which has risked being subsumed and losing its own identity in the coalition, from which Some territorial organizations have been stupidly mistreated, as happened with Si se puede in the municipality of Santa Cruz de Tenerife in the 2019 locals. Of course, Rodríguez enjoys extensive knowledge, but his value as an icon of the new podemite left, for Of course, it has worn out quickly. But it is a game of political survival. Rodríguez could put together his own artifact – a party or a group of voters – and forge alliances with Podemos or with the SSP, inside or outside the Yolandismo umbrella. Or end up disembarking with their own – which will not be too many in any case – in another party if the polls get even more dodgy than they paint now. Here is not the game of the future of the left to the left of the PSOE free of interference from Madrid. Here the only thing at stake is the continuity in institutional politics – those chairs, offices and carpets so odious – of Alberto Rodríguez.
