The Rise and Fall of Podemos

Perhaps Podemos should have a close look at itself. It is losing support and has fallen into fourth place. Its message may be as important as ever, but, as with all far-left parties, there are too many tendencies pulling in various directions. Not helping this, the leader of the party, Pablo Iglesias, tends towards an autocratic control of the group, with the consequent loss of some of his associates.

Iglesias is a clever man, and has some good ideas, but he is not strong on self-criticism (an exception following his poor results in Catalonia has been posted heavily in the media). Indeed, there are few newspapers or other sources which have much to say for Podemos either by itself or in coalition with the Izquierda Unida as Unidos Podemos, and, apart from El Diario and Público (both cyber-news sites) the corporate media is uniformly hostile.

Podemos shot to fame a few years back, but maybe their star is burning out. Certainly a president with a pony-tail may be a step too far to imagine.

It’s also true that the voters can be fickle and, as this video shows, quite foolish. Podemos also makes for good jokes, as the fake news site El Mundo Today knows. However, within the joke (Podemos, ‘We Can’, to change its name to ‘We Want’), a kernel grows: the group is indeed considering changing its name as part of a change in image (maybe you should consider cutting off that coleta, Pablo!).