The count of days without Irene Montero already has sides

Five days without Irene Montero and the trenches open again
The formula is old and familiar: "we are X days without...". It is used to measure abstinence, relapses and, in politics, to measure resentment. Applied to Irene Montero, the count has been running for five days and has split the thermometer: some demand her back as "a politician for real", while others bury her with the label of the political establishment.
The material argument against her boils down to one figure repeated ad nauseam: 24,000 euros net per month. An amount nobody verifies with a payslip or an official ruling, but which feeds the image of the privileged woman who preaches equality and lives off the public budget. On the other side, those who defend her argue that she is one of the few who does not speak like a party automaton, and that is precisely why she ruffles antiestéticathers.
The battle does not stop at her salary. The irony has gone as far as comparing one of her photographs with a National Geographic cover, and underneath circulate accusations as crude as "false complaints" presented as a done deal, with no final court ruling anywhere. The gestures of politics have also become ammunition for caricature, although what underlies it all is the settling of scores with the Podemos phenomenon.
The disorienting fact: the same woman some accuse of living like the political elite is the one others define as the only one with a voice of her own. With such a gulf, the count of days without Irene Montero looks far from reaching zero.