Bustinduy takes the campaign role

Frente Amplio announced on Thursday, 22 October, that Pablo Bustinduy, the minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and the 2030 Agenda, will be the spokesman for its campaign in the general election on 29 November. The coalition, made up of IU, Movimiento Sumar, Más Madrid and Comuns and led by Ada Colau as its candidate for the premiership, said he had shown "total support" for the ticket from the start. Bustinduy had been widely tipped to head the list but repeatedly ruled himself out, and he is not on the lists. The role gives him a place in debates and interviews and makes him one of the main faces of the campaign.

Housing as the core message

The coalition says the post is meant to reinforce the "choral" profile of the candidacy and its focus on housing. It credits Bustinduy with leading the talks on the housing royal decrees in government and with pushing the reform and funding of the dependency law, which it calls one of the great achievements of this legislature. In his first statement as spokesman, Bustinduy said the mobilisations across the country pointed to a clear path.

“This is going to be the autumn of housing, and our job is to take that momentum to the ballot boxes.”

He described the 29N vote as "a referendum on the right to housing", in which voters must choose between those who embrace speculators and those who want a new housing policy that puts workers' needs first.

Every seat contested, with limits

In Barcelona, Ernest Urtasun, the culture minister and number two on the Comuns-Frente Amplio list, said the coalition would fight for every vote from progressive citizens on the Congress lists. He spoke after meeting representatives of the Taula del Tercer Sector in Barcelona. He left room for case-by-case exceptions and defended the Senate agreement with the PSOE in some provinces, while saying the same arrangement would not be repeated for Congress in general. The official position rules out a global deal with the PSOE that would leave the small constituencies, which elect three to five seats, without Frente Amplio lists.

Teruel is the exception drawing attention. The coalition's Aragonese wing, CHA-Frente Amplio Aragón, chose not to stand for Congress in Teruel to avoid splitting the progressive vote. Frente Amplio has rejected that move, describing it as a unilateral decision taken by the Chunta, which leads the left alliance in Aragon. Urtasun said the coalition's party table would have to clarify whether there are specific cases like Aragon's, and he stressed the stakes of the vote.

“Without a good result for the Frente Amplio there will be no progressive government.”

PSOE denies a deal and a Palencia row

PSOE organisation secretary Rebeca Torró denied on Thursday that there were negotiations with Frente Amplio aimed at keeping the coalition off the Congress ballot in some constituencies on 29N, where the socialists are seen as having better chances of winning seats. In an interview on Cadena SER she said the only negotiation between the two had concerned the Senate, and she blamed "misunderstandings" over remarks by Frente Amplio's Madrid list head, Emilio Delgado. Torró said the PSOE had begun registering its single lists for Congress and expected to finish on Friday, 23 October.

In Palencia, members of the party's Congress slate resigned en bloc after Ferraz replaced their number one. Torró said she understood the frustration but stressed that list-making differs from primaries and that the Comisión Federal de Listas determines candidacies. She defended naming a woman, Mariluz Martínez Seijo, close to Pedro Sánchez, as number one, saying it fits the last congress mandate to have more women heading lists.

What comes next

The next concrete step is the close of PSOE's Congress list registration on Friday, 23 October. No date was given for when Frente Amplio's party table will clarify the cases Urtasun referred to, and the campaign runs toward the 29 November vote with Bustinduy as spokesman and Colau as candidate.