• Slate led by Rita Maestre, Tania Sánchez wins local party platform planks
• Podemos Madrid leadership contest to be decided after weekend of balloting
In the battle for leadership control in the Madrid stronghold of Spain’s anti-austerity party Podemos, the Adelante Podemos slate aligned with the national party’s number-two leader, Íñigo Errejón, appears to have stolen the march on rivals in the last week before the local party’s internal primary election process enters its final four-day phase on Saturday.
In voting last week on the Podemos Madrid party platform planks, the Adelante Podemos faction led by Madrid municipal spokesperson Rita Maestre and former Madrid regional assembly representative Tania Sánchez saw their views prevail on nine of 11 platform planks that will determine the future direction of the party, both in terms of ideology and electoral strategies.
On Tuesday, the Adelante group registered their final slate of candidates, incorporating six of the 10 members of the Madrid party leadership who resigned en masse last March claiming dissatisfaction over the alleged authoritarian leadership practices of party officials aligned with Podemos’ national leader Pablo Iglesias.
In the current Madrid party leadership contest that will be decided this weekend with results announced Tuesday, the Iglesias-backed candidate Ramón Espinar now finds himself embroiled in controversy over media reports that he purchased and then sold at a profit a low-income housing flat in which he never actually lived.
► Read More in Spanish at Público, La Vanguardia and El Mundo …
