Chunta leaves a joint list in Teruel

Chunta Aragonesista has said it will not run a joint candidacy with Frente Amplio in the province of Teruel, Aragon, which leaves the coalition without a shared list there. ABC reports that Chunta took the decision unilaterally, and that Izquierda Unida will stand in the province even if it has to go alone. Frente Amplio is the electoral vehicle that replaced Sumar, led by Yolanda Díaz, for the general election on 29 November, and Ada Colau says it groups 15 formations. Pablo Bustinduy, Spain's Minister of Social Rights and the coalition's campaign spokesman, said its ballot would appear across the whole country and urged voters to focus on housing, wages and pensions rather than on lists. Emilio Delgado, the coalition's list leader in Madrid, said Frente Amplio works with variable geometry in which each territory decides what suits it best, and that he would respect those decisions.

ABC also reports that Delgado said on Tuesday evening on public television that talks were under way to help the Socialists maximize results, then on Thursday said those talks were limited to the coalition's internal sphere. Sources from the coalition's four main families deny any talks with the PSOE to withdraw lists in other mid-sized provinces. ABC reported weeks earlier that Pedro Sánchez had pressed the left partners to stay out of those provinces.

Podemos turns the split into an appeal

Ione Belarra, Podemos's general secretary, urged left-wing voters to back her party at a press conference in Congress, arguing that Frente Amplio had left voters in Teruel without an option.

“They have gone so far as to withdraw the candidacy in Teruel, leaving left-wing voters in that province completely defenseless.”

Belarra said Podemos stands in every province and that backing the PSOE would mean, in her view, more corruption, more speculation in housing and more rearmament. She also played down the departure of Ricard Mitjana, Podemos's coordinator in Aragon, which she said had happened some weeks earlier after disagreements with the national leadership. According to Belarra, that resignation was linked to the municipal primaries in Podemos Aragon, and María Goikoetxea, who led the party's list in the last regional election, now leads the party in the region. Belarra argued that the real question in Aragon is whether the left will submit to the designs of the PSOE.

Colau's television tour and the Montero exchange

Ada Colau, Frente Amplio's candidate for prime minister, opened a television tour on Thursday 22 October on 'El Perro Andaluz' (RTVE), according to El Periódico, which says she also accepted invitations to 'La Revuelta' and 'The Wild Project'. The same outlet reports that she left the Barcelona city council on 25 October 2024 after 3,423 days in office, and that she returned to X on Tuesday 20 October, a network she had quit in 2021, to answer a request from the influencer Jordi Wild. During the interview she asked Irene Montero, the Podemos candidate, to choose between two options.

“I would simply ask her to choose between two options. Game of Thrones or Friends?”

Colau said Frente Amplio had not failed in seeking a unity deal on the left, and that those who went alone would have to answer for it. She assigned 'gluttony' to Gabriel Rufián, 'exhibitionism' to former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias and 'laziness' to Pedro Sánchez, whom she accused of failing to legislate on housing despite years of promises. Colau responded to Sánchez's Thursday interview on TVE's 'La Revuelta' by saying he had, without meaning to, asked for votes for Frente Amplio, because he praised four measures pushed by Sumar ministries: minimum wage increases, the labor reform, permanent hiring and the housing decrees.

ERC's pact with Podemos

El Mundo reports, citing several people present, that ERC's leadership told members at a closed-door National Council on Tuesday 20 October that its agreement with Podemos for the general election mainly aimed to stop Podemos from taking thousands of votes in Catalonia. Oriol López, ERC's deputy secretary general, who led the list drafting and the talks with Podemos, reportedly told members that Podemos is not standing in Catalonia, which leaves one fewer list on the left. Gabriel Rufián, who had been named list head, sat in the back rows, while Oriol Junqueras presented the list and closed it symbolically to mark his amnesty. Another ERC leader described the mood at the meeting as tense.