Más Madrid offers Irene Montero second spot on Madrid list

Más Madrid offers Irene Montero the number 2 spot on its Madrid list

Mónica García needed a gesture, and she has put one on the table: Más Madrid has offered Irene Montero the number 2 spot on the Madrid list, according to sources familiar with the negotiation who are handling the information published by Daniel Galvalizi. The Podemos candidate for Prime Minister would take the slot reserved for the purple party on a ballot that, at this point, remains unsealed. The move seeks to defuse the narrative that García's party is the spoiler of the left's unity.

The deal has an internal price. With Montero in second place, Eduardo Rubiño would drop to third and Tesh Sidi would fall to sixth, already considered out of the running. The distribution is complicated by the total parity law, which requires a zipper list and forces a man into the fifth spot: names mentioned include Enrique Santiago, Urtasun, or a dark horse from within the party. In 2023, with the Sumar coalition, six deputies were elected in Madrid; this time the fourth spot would go to Frente Amplio, although a strong campaign with Podemos on board and the push from Gabriel Rufián could turn the calculation around.

Who decides and who has doubts inside Más Madrid

Last Friday the party's executive board warned García, according to the same sources, telling her that her position was casting the regionalist party as the villain of the story. That same Friday, and not on Sunday when it was made public, it was decided that Emilio Delgado would top the ballot, above the Health Minister, seeking a figure with the same media pull as Rufián.

Inside Más Madrid, most people believe none of it. The prevailing theory is that it is all a Podemos show to wear down Frente Amplio and end up running separately. The plan B already circulating in whispers: regional deals everywhere except Madrid and Barcelona.

The role of Colau, Rufián and ERC in the negotiation

The one still acting as intermediary between the warring factions is Ada Colau, who has not yet accepted the candidacy for regional president: she will only do so if there is a unity deal. ERC's spokesperson, meanwhile, is trying to bring Comuns and Junqueras's party closer together, a complicated exercise. The working hypothesis is that the independence leader accepted Rufián's offer because he prefers a deal with Podemos, which would get the number 6 spot on the Barcelona list, over suffocating Comuns.

The fine print nobody signs

The detail that unsettles is not Montero's name, but the timing: Más Madrid's executive board made its move on a Friday to correct a course that was slipping away from them, and did so by placing a regional MP ahead of a government minister. If the unity deal goes through, the distribution of seats is locked in; if it does not, each party already has its plan B and the electorate of the confederal left will find out from the ballot.