Podemos (Spanish political party)
Podemos | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Spokesperson | Pablo Iglesias Turrión |
| Founded | 17 January 2014 |
| Headquarters | c/ Zurita 21 28012 Madrid |
| Political position | Left-wing[1] |
| European Parliament group | European United Left–Nordic Green Left |
| Colours | Purple |
| Local Government | 0 / 68,230
|
| Regional Parliaments | 0 / 1,268
|
| Congress of Deputies | 0 / 350
|
| Spanish Senate | 0 / 266
|
| European Parliament | 5 / 54
|
| Website | |
| www.podemos.info | |
Podemos (meaning 'We can' in Spanish) is a Spanish political party created on 11 March 2014 by Spanish leftist activists associated with the 15-M movement that emerged from the 2011–12 Spanish protests.[2] Its defacto leader is Pablo Iglesias Turrión[2] a writer, professor of Political Science at the Complutense University in Madrid and occasional Spanish television presenter for a regional political discussion program Fort Apache.[3]
Podemos together with some 26 other small emergent parties capitalised on significant discontent with the bipartisanship of the two main political parties: the People's Party and Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. Using the infrastructure of the so called indignados and social media networks Podemos generated significant interest throughout Spain. The party collected 50,000 supporting signatures within their first day, causing their website to crash due to traffic overload once the project was made public.
Pablo Iglesias cites the Greek Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) led by Alexis Tsipras as an inspiration.[4]
Podemos is organized through Circles,[5] which can be groups of both territorial and sectoral work.
Initial policies
Podemos issued an extensive (36-page) policy document[6] in which each of the 6 sections has the suffix Constructing Democracy.
- 1. Recovering the economy places emphasis on public control, includes poverty reduction and social dignity via a guaranteed minimum income for everyone. It includes lobbying controls and tax-avoidance remedies for large corporations and multi-national organisations, as well as promotion of smaller enterprises.
- 2. 3. 4. Promoting liberty fraternity and equality is about breaking down barriers across Europe and allowing people to cooperate fairly without either intelligence gathering or social inhibitions which are notionally 'counter-terrorism measures.
- 5. Redefining Sovereignty implies revoking or curtailing the Treaty of Lisbon, abandoning memoranda of understandings withdrawing from some free trade agreements and promoting referenda on any major constitutional reform.
- 6. Recover the land deals with reduction of fossil fuel consumption, promotion of public transport and renewable energy initiatives, reduction of industrial cash crop agriculture and stimulus of local food production by Small and medium enterprises
EU elections 2014
On 25 May 2014 Podemos entered candidates for the 2014 European parliamentary elections, some of which were unemployed. In a surprise result, it polled 7.97% of the vote and thus was awarded five seats out of 54.[7][8]
Regarding the election Pablo Iglesias was described as pessimistic by El Pais: “We have lost these European elections. They have been won by the Popular Party. We cannot be happy about this." He stated that his objective is to "move forward until we throw the PP and the PSOE out of power."[9] "We will now work with other parties from the south of Europe to make it clear that we don’t want to be a German colony.”[9] Iglesias said Podemos MEPs would not take the standard MEP salary of more than €8,000 (£6,500) a month, stating that "not one of our MEPs will earn more than €1,930, an amount that's three times the minimum wage in Spain".[10]
Elected representatives
- 1. Pablo Iglesias Turrión, political science teacher, Complutense University of Madrid, 35 years of age
- 2. Teresa Rodríguez, secondary school teacher in Cádiz, 32
- 3. Carlos Jiménez Villarejo, former anti-corruption prosecutor, Barcelona, 78[5]
- 4. Lola Sánchez, former entrepreneur (tax rises killed her business), Cartagena, 36
- 5. Pablo Echenique-Robba, scientist with Spanish National Research Council Zaragoza (CSIC), 35[11]
Popular support and electoral results
European Parliament
| Election year | Party | European Parliament | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| # of overall votes |
% of overall vote |
# of overall seats won |
+/– | ||
| 2014 | Podemos | 1,245,948 | 8.0 (#4) | 5 / 54
|
New |
References
- ^ http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/25/us-euelection-spain-idUSBREA4O0FP20140525
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/eclectic-mix-makes-up-new-european-parliament/2014/05/27/9f5f9598-e5b7-11e3-a70e-ea1863229397_story.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27572663
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cd0d26b6-e4b5-11e3-9b2b-00144feabdc0.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/spains-podemos-party-wins-european-elections-2014-5
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/world/europe/spanish-upstart-party-said-it-could-and-did-now-the-hard-part-begins.html?_r=0
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/05/28/european-elections-left-lurch-right_n_5403059.html
http://cep.rhul.ac.uk/cep-blog/2014/5/29/why-grillo-may-not-need-farage-to-form-a-parliamentary-group.html
http://www.cityam.com/article/1401166025/major-victories-anti-eu-and-left-wing-blocs
http://sofiaglobe.com/2014/05/25/european-election-2014-running-results-snapshot/
http://www.thelocal.es/20140525/major-parties-lose-out-in-euro-elections - ^ a b Gutiérrez Calvo, Vera (27 May 2014). "Podemos: A party under construction". El Pais in English. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ Pablo Iglesias Turrión. "Curriculum Vitae de Pablo Iglesias Turrión" (PDF) (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 July 2014.
- ^ Román, David (26 May 2014). "Can Spain's New Party Build on its EU Poll Success?". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
- ^ a b Ríos, Pere (29 May 2014). ""Podemos is breathing new life into a decadent democracy"". El Pais in English. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ Final Program Document (in Spanish)
- ^ Sky news:Spanish voters punish mainstream parties
- ^ BBC News Vote 2014
- ^ a b Gómez, Luis (26 May 2014). "The untamed ambition of Podemos, the surprise victor in Sunday's poll". El Pais in English. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ Kassam, Ashifa (27 May 2014). "Podemos hopes to cement rise of citizen politics in Spain after election success". The Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2014.
- ^ Podemos Candidates
External links
