Errejón’s resignation: a bomb on the feminist left whose effects go beyond Sumar | Spain

Any way Íñigo Errejón would fall would have been a trauma for Sumar. Almost unanimously considered a political leader with strategic gifts and a skilled speaker – adapted to both the media and parliamentary registers – it would not have been easy to replace him regardless of the reason for his departure. But the thing is that, in addition, of all the ways of falling, he has made it one of the most spectacular and harmful to his people: with a resignation after a woman’s complaintanonymous but public, of possible humiliating treatment, including of a sexual nature.

Voices consulted by EL PAÍS, both from Sumar’s space and from the field of political investigation, agree that the circumstances of his departure can have a multiplying effect on the political impact, especially if the case escalates, given that it affects flags. such as feminism, the rejection of violence of any kind against women, the right to sexual indemnity, the vindication of masculinities far from dominant patterns.

Are you worried that what happened will have a political cost for Sumar? The official response of the party is that what would have an impact is “not having done anything about this situation”, something that has not happened, says a spokesperson for Sumar, who refers to a statement in which the party has tried to convey seriousness and urgency in his reaction, revealing that he had already initiated an investigation, held a management meeting and “unanimously” accepted Errejón’s resignation, to whom they did not even say goodbye.

Under condition of anonymity, a deputy from the group is clear that the case will “certainly” be a problem for Sumar and the forces that make up it. What’s more, he warns that the irradiation will not be limited to Sumar: “This goes beyond Sumar. This represents a deterioration for the entire space on the left, including the Government. Society is not going to discriminate on this issue.” The deputy does not believe that Podemos – a party that also claims to be a feminist force from outside Sumar – will be left out of the foreseeable climate of suspicion for not having acted sooner: “What Íñigo is accused of could have done when he was in office.” the leadership of Podemos.”

Also without giving his name, a former regional leader of Más País is emphatic: “I think it is a sign of the end of a political cycle, that of the last 10 years.”

Political analyst Pablo Simón approaches the crisis opened by the resignation like a tedax to an explosive, very slowly and with gloves, knowing that all caution is insufficient. Asked about the political cost that the episode may imply, he leans towards a gloomy prognosis for Sumar and in general for the progressive space. “First, you have to take into account the context. Sumar is in full reconfiguration. And suddenly this bomb falls, which fully affects one of the few resources that Yolanda Díaz had left. Errejón was no longer even there as Más Madrid, but was Add-Add. It is foreseeable that voices will now be raised asking questions from all the currents within the group. Was this known? If it was known, why was he put there (as a deputy and spokesperson for the parliamentary group)? How could this recklessness be committed? Why wasn’t action taken sooner?

The professor at the Carlos III University of Madrid believes that the problem, which will be more serious if it becomes a series of continuous news and accusations, affects the Executive as a whole, including the PSOE. “The Government is almost in political paralysis and has very serious difficulties in talking about its achievements, because all the opposition gets from it is Begoña (Gómez) or (José Luis) Ábalos. And right there this jumps out. Although it does not directly affect the PSOE, it will be easy for the opposition to put it in the same bag of complaints about corruption and degeneration that it usually uses for the Koldo case“, states the author of Understand politics. A guide for newbiesfor whom what happened is “the perfect fuel for the cultural wars of the right”, who will now be able to dedicate themselves to accusing the left of “hypocrisy and double standards” on an issue, equality, in which the PP and Vox usually have difficulty moving.

The first movements of the PP seem to prove Simón right. The Deputy Secretary of Mobilization and Digital Challenge of the PP, Noelia Núñez, in a video published by the PP, stated that Errejón’s behavior was “an open secret in all areas of the left.” “They knew it, they covered it up, they consented to it. Now we understand that they did not make him a minister at the time, but Mrs. (Yolanda) Díaz did reward him with the spokesperson for the parliamentary group. “This is the hypocritical feminism of this Government, of Pedro Sánchez with Ábalos and now of Díaz with Errejón,” said Núñez, who addressed the “women defrauded” by parties for which “it seems that if the aggressor is from the left everything it gets covered.” “We ask Yolanda Díaz for all kinds of explanations,” added the leader, for whom the Government is based on a “pact of cover-ups.”

While the PP made its video public, social media users, always attentive to the contradictions of politicians, began to rescue Errejón’s feminist tweets.

The dramatic interruption of political careers due to improper behavior, or flagrant contradictions between public virtue and private conduct, is a tradition in American politics. With the perspective that careful observation gives him, political scientist Roger Senserrich, resident in New Haven, Connecticut, and author of the newsletter Four Freedomsbelieves that Sumar and his political space are not doomed in advance for the case to become a credibility sink. “It depends on how they handle it. If the response is firmness and exemplary, you can say ‘what we say we do’ and come out stronger,” he says.

In his opinion, in the United States the Democratic Party and the Republican Party operate with different levels of self-demand regarding issues that affect their behavior towards women. The author of Why America Broke. Populism and polarization in the Trump era He gives as an example Donald Trump, to whom his people justify anything while in the Democratic Party they are much harsher with their own. An emblematic case occurred in 2017, when more than 20 Democratic senators teammate Al Franken was asked to resign after A journalist said that during a trip in 2006, the then comedian kissed her and grabbed her breasts without consent while she was sleeping.

“Democrats are much more vulnerable to being attacked for hypocrisy and perhaps that is why they react much more vehemently,” adds Senserrich, “which in turn allows them to defend that they are different from the Republicans, who since 2016 marked a turning point. later when they barely reacted to a video in which Trump was heard saying that ‘When you’re a star, women ‘let you do anything to them, grab them by the pussy’”.

Now, he concludes, “to the extent that the case (of Errejón) becomes more serious and becomes a recurring story, with new revelations and a continuous ‘who knew what’, the problem will be greater for Sumar, logically.”