Pablo Iglesias Leaves Spanish Politics After Ayuso’s Sweeping Victory In Madrid Elections

Pablo Iglesias Leaves Spanish Politics After Ayuso’s Sweeping Victory In Madrid Elections.

The Podemos leader and former deputy prime minister Pablo Iglesias has announced he is leaving the political stage for good.

Ayuso secured a landslide victory on Tuesday, winning 65 seats in the 136-seat Assembly (up from 30 seats in the 2019 election). Podemos won 10 seats (up from 7 in 2019). Pony-tailed Iglesias, 42, said to reporters on Tuesday night: ‘I’m leaving all party politics- I won’t be an obstacle for the renewal of leadership our political force needs.’

‘We have failed, we have been far from putting together a sufficient majority,’ said Iglesias. ‘When you are no longer useful, you need to know when to withdraw,’ he added.

Speaking after the conservative People’s Party (PP) triumphed in the Madrid regional election in which he had stood as his party’s candidate, Iglesias said the time had come for him to “leave my post and leave politics”. However, the former politics lecturer added that he remained “very proud” to have led “a project that changed the history of our country”.

It was not an empty boast as, during the seven years since Podemos was born from the fury of Spain’s indignados movement, the far-left, anti-austerity party has transformed the country’s politics.

After breaking through in 2014’s European elections, Podemos – together with the now moribund, center-right Citizens party – brought an end to four decades of dominance by the duopoly of the PP and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE).

The leader of Más País, Íñigo Errejón, has valued, in a press conference in Congress, the work of Iglesias in recent years. “Pablo Iglesias has played a fundamental role in Spanish politics and in the political change in Spain”, defended Errejón, whose party once again surpassed that of his old friend and party colleague, with 24 seats compared to 10.

Source: El Pais