Spain: another problem for Pedro Sánchez’s governing coalition, now due to reports of sexist violence against a leader

A new scandal affects the coalition that governs Spain: Iñigo Errejón, spokesperson of the Sumar Congress, the left-wing party of the PSOE and its minority partner in the governmenthe resigned that Thursday from his bench and from political life. From Sumar they confessed that they were investigating a complaint against them for sexist violence.

“The pace and way of life on the political front line, for a decade, It wore down my physical health, my mental health and my affective and emotional structure.“, the former MP said in a statement on his X account.

“On the political and media front we survive and are more effective, at least this was my case, with a way of behaving that is often emancipated from the care, empathy and needs of others”, he added without referring to the complaint against of him. This generates a toxic subjectivity which, in the case of men, the patriarchy multiplies, with work colleagues, with organizational colleagues, with emotional relationships and even with themselves”, he added.

Errejón, 40, hastened his departure from Parliament when the news was reported online the complaint of a woman who accuses him of being a psychological abuser in his private life.

It was the journalist and feminist activist Cristina Fallarás who published the anonymous story against the now former deputy who, according to a woman who was with him, “does numbers” if during the intimacy of sex They do not give in to the “humiliating practices” that he proposes.

“He is a psychological abuser,” defined the woman who reported him.

“It throws you out of the house.”

“He is extremely kind at the beginning in taking a liking to you, when he sees that he has achieved something the rudeness and gaslighting begins (it is always you who does not understand the deputy). In the afternoon he shows you affection and also makes relationship proposals and “After two hours he kicks you out.”the woman explained.

“If you do something he doesn’t like, he punishes you with silence and indifference so that you learn to respect God, which is what he believes him to be,” he added.

As the afternoon passes in Spain, four other women dared to come forward and brand Errejón as a molester.

The actress Elisa Mouliaá confessed it this Thursday: “I am a victim of sexual harassment by Iñigo Errejón and I want to report it”he dared to say on his social networks.

In his resignation statement, Errejón justified his departure: “I have been working on a personal path and psychological support for some time.but the truth is that to advance in it and take care of myself, I must abandon institutional politics, its demands and its rhythms”.

Before admitting to his party colleagues that the accusations against him are true, the former deputy observed: “I, after an intense and accelerated political cycle, I reached the limit of the contradiction between the character and the person. Between a neoliberal lifestyle and being the spokesperson for a group that defends a new, more just and humane world. The ideological struggle is also a struggle to build better, more attentive, more supportive and, therefore, freer ways of life and relationships. “You can’t ask people to vote differently than they behave in their daily lives.”

Repercussions

President Pedro Sánchez distanced himself from the now former spokesperson of his coalition partners: “The government works for a feminist Spain where women have the same rights, the same opportunities and the same freedom and security as men,” Sánchez wrote.

“My full condemnation for those who attack this equality project,” added the president without naming Errejón.

“Our commitment against machismo is firm and without exceptions”said the vice president, minister of labor and representative of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz. It was she who appointed Iñigo Errejón as Sumar’s parliamentary spokesperson in January, when she was still at the helm of the party.

From Podemos, the ex-MP’s former militant colleagues repudiated the mistreatment suffered by Errejón. “The silence is beginning to be broken. Even famous people see that impunity is breaking down, this is important,” said Ione Belarra, general secretary of Podemos.

From the opposition, the People’s Party accused Sumar of covering up for Errejón: “They knew it and they hid it.”

From leader of the left to denounced as a molester

There was a time when Iñigo Errejón it was a promise of hope for thousands of Spaniards. With his best friend Pablo Iglesias he founded Podemos, the party that in 2014 was able to capture the social indignation that was weighing on Spain and from which Errejón left when the clash of egos with Iglesias left him almost breathless.

The guy who had a PhD in Political Science from the Complutense University of Madrid He wanted to become a reference for the left at a national level.the. He was the youngest candidate to participate – with his own party – in a general election, those of November 2019, in which he even competed with his former political and life partner, Pablo Iglesias.

It was then that he presented himself with his brand new formation, Más País, inspired by a previous alliance with former mayor Manuela Carmena to found Más Madrid, a label with which he previously aspired to govern the autonomous community of Madrid but failed.

Another setback for progressives

These are hard times for the Spanish left. The possible and imminent accusation of corruption of José Luis Abalos, former minister and former organizational secretary of the PSOE – the party of which President Pedro Sánchez is general secretary – affects the socialists. And Sumar, that conglomerate of parties to the left of the PSOE that debuted in the general elections in July last year with Yolanda Díaz as leader, is falling apart.

Sumar’s poor election result in the European elections in June had a negative impact on Díaz, who resigned as party leader.

Errejón served as Sumar’s spokesman in Congress since January this year. It had already been, between 2016 and 2017, with Podemos. And between 2019 and 2023 parliamentary spokesperson for Más País.

In the hours following his resignation, television stations and websites recalled some of his most contradictory statements with what Iñigo Errejón had just admitted. When she said, for example, that “the feminist movement certainly is “the biggest and best breath of fresh air to democratize our country”.

Or when, from the pulpit, he shouted: “The commitment to a feminist Spain It is not a rhetorical commitment, it is not a verbal commitment. It is a commitment that must also be reflected in who we are and how we do things.”

At one time he even went so far as to urge the Spaniards “so that we can proceed to a more mature discussion in Spain on what is happening with masculinity, what is happening with sexual-affective education in schools and institutes.”