MADRID, June 10 (Reuters) – An alliance between Spain’s main far-left parties Sumar and Podemos will be “more than positive” to help win next month’s election, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Saturday.
Podemos, the junior partner in the coalition government with Sánchez’s Socialist Party, announced on Friday that it will join forces with Sumar and a number of small regional parties for the July 23 election.
Sánchez called early elections after his Socialist party and Podemos fared worse in last month’s local elections, losing ground to right-wing parties.
Analysts said a unified far left is essential to Sánchez’s chances of re-election.
Sanchez told a meeting of party supporters in Madrid on Saturday that the Sumar-Podemos deal was “more than positive”, adding that “unity is the first proof of responsibility”.
Yolanda Díaz, Minister of Labor and leader of Sumar, told a meeting of party supporters in Madrid on Saturday that the alliance with Podemos offers hope for the elections.
A sticking point between Podemos and Sumar had been Sumar’s opposition to Equality Minister Irene Montero, a prominent Podemos figure, who was left off the electoral rolls for next month’s poll.
In recent months, Montero has faced criticism for his landmark sexual consent law that included a loophole that has allowed 1,127 sentences to be reduced and 115 sex offenders to be released from prison early, according to Spain’s General Council of the Judiciary.
A unified far left is essential for Sánchez to have any chance of re-election, Jose Pablo Ferrandiz, head of polling company Ipsos in Spain, told Reuters on Friday.
A more likely outcome is that a unified far left prevents the conservative Popular Party and far-right Vox from forming a coalition government, producing a hung parliament and repeat elections, Ferrandiz said.
Reporting by Graham Keeley; Additional reporting by Juan Medina and Michael Gore; Editing by Mike Harrison
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