Following weeks of uncertainty, Labour Minister and current Unidas Podemos member Yolanda Díaz said she will announce on 2 April whether she will join the prime ministerial race as a candidate for the new left-wing and progressive electoral platform Sumar ahead of the general elections in December.

In a recent message posted on Twitter, Díaz invited citizens to attend an event in Madrid on 2 April, at which she will shed light on her possible candidacy.

“In the next few days, I am going to take perhaps one of the most important decisions of my life (…) I am going to do it immediately”, Diaz said on Sunday at a rally in Seville – one of the many she attended to present the political programme of Sumar, which aspires to unite all progressive forces to prevent a future coalition of centre-right PP and far-right VOX.

Diaz, who postponed the announcement several times since January, was urged by her current party Unidas Podemos to clarify her position.

Unidas Podemos’ role in Sumar is also unclear, as the party’s Secretary General, Social Rights Minister Ione Belarra’s call to give the left-wing party a leading role has not yet convinced Díaz who is still hesitant on how to find the best balance of progressive forces.

As a campaign motto, Sumar proposes to put citizens at the centre of all political actions and make them aware that a different way of making politics is possible.

“We have to treat with respect the citizens suffering so much after the pandemic and now with the effects of the war in Ukraine. Politics is about building trust. Noise takes people away from it. And then they [politicians] wonder why citizens are not interested in it [politics] (…)”, Diaz warned.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)