Interview by

In Spain, the decline of the green-communist United Left (IU) alliance has gone hand-in-hand with the rise of Podemos. In this interview, first published by the French site Mediapart, Alberto Garzón, a candidate for the IU leadership, argues that Podemos’s “caesarism” provides no solutions. He calls for the various left forces to converge in the run-up to the country’s November elections.

This piece, from the viewpoint of Podemos’s political rivals in the established Spanish left, provides a critique of Podemos and its brand of populism that has been inspired by Argentinian political theorist Ernesto Laclau.

Garzón is one of those people, together with Podemos’s Pablo Iglesias and Guanyem’s Ada Colau, who embodies the renovation of Spanish political life. A twenty-nine-year-old economist, he is a candidate running in the United Left’s primary this year. He’ll face the challenge of rejuvenating an organization that has not only having been left behind by the rise of Podemos but also has been struck by corruption allegations against some of its local officeholders.

In the following discussion, Garzón — elected a member of parliament for Malaga in 2011 — explains how he hopes to renew the party’s political culture from top to bottom. He also attacks the “ambiguities” that have emerged during the rise of Podemos, from its economic program to the institutional reforms that it proposes.