• En Comú Podem ~ Together We Can •
En Comú Podem is an electoral coalition based in Spain’s northern region of Catalonia that was formed in October 2015 and is comprised of several political parties and activist platforms, including Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV, Initiative for Catalonia Greens), Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (EUiA, United and Alternative Left), the Barcelona en Comú (Barcelona In Common) movement led by Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, the pro-Catalan independence Procés Constituent (Constituent Process) movement, the Catalan section of national anti-austerity party Podemos (We Can) and the Equo environmentalist party.
Formed in October 2015 at the initiative of Barcelona en Comú leader Colau, the coalition was formed one month after the lackluster showing in regional Catalan elections of the Podemos-backed Catalunya Sí que es Pot (Catalonia Yes We Can) coalition, in order to present a joint list of candidates in Catalonia for the 20th December (20-D) national elections. The coalition platform includes support for holding a binding referendum to allow Catalans to decide whether they want Catalonia to remain part of Spain or become independent.
While the 2015 coalition agreement called for En Comú Podem to run a joint slate with Podemos, the seats won by the coalition were to be divided proportionally among the coalition members and it was agreed that En Comú Podem would have its own parliamentary group in Congress, giving it a separate budget and legislative debating rights independent from the Podemos parliamentary group.
With Procés Constituent activist Xavier Domènech at the top of the ticket, in Spain’s 20-D general elections En Comú Podem won 927,940 votes (3.69 percent of total votes cast), more votes than any other political coalition or party competing in the region and giving it 12 seats in Spain’s lower house of parliament, the Congress of Deputies.
In the division of the 12 Congressional seats, three went to ICV, two seats each went to EUiA, Barcelona en Comú, Procés Constituent (a member of the Barcelona en Comú coalition) and Podemos, and one seat went to an independent candidate of the coalition. Podemos was unable to deliver on its pledge to allow En Comú Podem to have its own parliamentary group in Congress, when other parties in Congress united to vote against the move, and En Comú Podem’s deputies formed part of the Podemos-En Comú Podem-En Marea parliamentary group in the short-lived 2015 Congress.
More about En Comú Podem can be found online at the following links:
Updated as of 11/2019
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