Broad Front, narrow mind: Spain's radical left rebrands again

The Frente Amplio is the latest brand of Spain's radical left, which, according to Antonio R. Naranjo's analysis in El Debate, already has its space occupied by Pedro Sánchez. The operation, with Ada Colau as a possible leader, reveals a battle between factions rather than a new project.

The name sounds new, but it is over half a century old and has Uruguayan origins. The Frente Amplio is the latest label for a political contraption that in Spain has already answered to Marea, Confluencia, Comunes and Círculos, according to the analysis **Antonio R. Naranjo** publishes in **El Debate**. The label changes, the soul does not: radical left with rhetorical verbiage, union interests and perverse effects. And now, once Sumar and Podemos have been discarded, it takes the shape of Latin American populist movements to do the same old thing under another name.

## A name with half a century of history

The term Frente Amplio is not a laboratory invention. It is over fifty years old, has Uruguayan origins, and trinc the formula seen in Spain before the Civil War and across half of Latin America since the 1970s. Naranjo compares it to the People's Front of Aaaa from the satire Life of Brian: a collection of parties that trinc Huxley's old axiom, and the more they raise their pompous rhetoric, the more they worsen their most sinister intentions.

The story is not new, the text insists. It is the same movie with a different poster. And in that movie, the battle between factions is the only certainty. They may put **Ada Colau** at the front, which betrays desperation, and behind her whatever it takes to please all the families of a space with more chiefs than horses and more horses than voters.

## The underlying problem: Sánchez already occupies that space

Here lies the crux of the matter. In Spain, the far left is already occupied by **Pedro Sánchez**, who has vampirized the original to turn the PSOE into a radical echo of the social-democratic party that was indispensable from the Transition until the arrival of **Zapatero**. The PSOE, says Naranjo, is no longer a party but a religion, with a bargain-basement guru who does not allow his flock to stray from his frontist, impoverishing and incompetent catechism.

The only aim, according to this reading, is to manufacture the poor and the ignorant in the certainty that only they can be his electoral customers. The consequence is that the Frente Amplio takes on all the drawbacks of standing next to an Attila of democracy, common sense and the rule of law, but none of the benefits. Perhaps a personal one for **Yolanda Díaz** if she rises in that thing called the Ministry of Labour, in exchange for the government spending a fortune on her pet project, but not one more.

## The partners who do profit

There is one exception to that rule of drawbacks without benefits. Only **Batasuna 2.0** has profited from putting Sánchez in Moncloa: it has been whitewashed without condemning terrorism, has got almost all the ETA members out of prison, and before long will send the **PNV** into opposition with the PSOE's help as the leading political force in the Basque Country, the article maintains.

The rest of the ecosystem fares no better. If the novelty to the left of the far left is Colau, with her pinch of **Mónica García**, the shadow of Yolanda Díaz and the space for the limited company of **Montero** and **Iglesias**, it is no wonder they even look wistfully at **Gabriel Rufián**, the independentist who lives in Madrid, wants to be president of Spain, is not fully allowed to in ERC and does not dare to lead the new Popular Front. Which, says Naranjo, only needs a couple of slogans to be just like its predecessor.

## What remains when the name changes

The rebranding operation has an underlying problem the text stresses: the space is full. The radical left of old has always posed as groundbreaking, but in the end it has done the oldest job in politics, that of Sánchez's useful fool. And that role admits no competition. The result is a front born divided, with more families than voters and a leadership fighting with knives while the true occupant of the space, Pedro Sánchez, watches from Moncloa.

Naranjo closes with a bitter irony: he can already picture the campaign slogan, "You shall burn as in '36," provided Pedro has not already taken it, which it seems he has. The conclusion, if there is one, is that changing the name does not change the function. And the function, in this case, is already taken.