On 15 October, Ione Belarra proposed bilateral agreements with IU in ten autonomous communities, leaving Madrid and Barcelona outside the offer. The move deepened a dispute that has eroded trust between Podemos and Frente Amplio and pushed talks on a single left-wing Senate slate aside. Friday is their decisive day, but there is no clear route out of the deadlock.
PSOE promoted the Senate plan to stop PP from renewing its absolute majority in the upper chamber. Frente Amplio says negotiations over Congress lists, complicated by the effort to reach an agreement with Podemos, consumed much of the alliance’s time. Disputes between territories and growing fatigue then pushed the Senate talks further down the agenda. As of 15 October, discussions remained open, but the parties had reached no agreement. Pedro Sánchez said the option was still on the table.
Regional deals are now moving in different directions.
In Canarias, Nueva Canarias and IU have joined a slate with Podemos. Movimiento Sumar is also part of the agreement, which will run under the name Unidad del Pueblo Canario. The deal is official.
In the Comunitat Valenciana, IU rejected a deal, while Valencian forces are still negotiating with Podemos. In the Balearic Islands, Més reached an agreement with Frente Amplio without Podemos. Podemos was also discussing cooperation with regional forces in Aragón, including Chunta, and talking with Ara Més in the Balearic Islands. Frente Amplio includes IU and Movimiento Sumar. Más Madrid and los comunes are also part of the alliance.
Ada Colau has said she will lead Frente Amplio’s candidacy even if Podemos stays out. She criticised separate regional deals, arguing they could leave Podemos with between one and three deputies. Colau also called for a broader anti-fascist alliance and named Gabriel Rufián as a possible participant. ERC has ruled that out.
The dispute sharpened on Wednesday, when Podemos leaders in the regions contacted IU coordinators in ten autonomous communities to explore agreements outside the federal leadership of Antonio Maíllo and Frente Amplio’s negotiating team. IU viewed the contacts as an attempt to bypass its national leadership and divide the talks. On 15 October, Maíllo rejected agreements negotiated territory by territory. IU, he said, would not make pacts with Podemos “piece by piece” or information from electoral calculations. His stance rallied even traditionally critical IU federations behind him.
Belarra’s plan called for selective agreements with IU. The proposed talks covered Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, the Basque Country, Navarre, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Murcia, Extremadura and Andalusia. Madrid and Barcelona would have separate candidacies.
Belarra argued that agreements would help prevent left-wing votes from being lost. Her leadership said the size of those constituencies made separate lists viable. IU insisted that any deal had to be negotiated within Frente Amplio as a whole, not through separate bilateral pacts. A split could still weaken the wider left-wing space, though agreements between different parties remain possible in some regions.
The deadline to register electoral coalitions was midnight on 16 October. That left the parties little time to settle their lists and complete registration before the general election on 29 November. A separate report examined arrangements for voters abroad in a report on CERA ballots. The general election is scheduled for 29 November.
