Pablo Iglesias, deputy prime minister of Spain and leader of the far-left party Unidas Podemos, is stepping down from the government to run in Madrid regional elections on May 4.
Iglesias made the surprise announcement in a video on Monday, days after Madrid’s Regional President Isabel Díaz Ayuso called a snap regional election.
“Madrid needs a left government and I believe I can be useful,” Iglesias, one of four deputy prime ministers, said. “I have been meditating it a lot and we have decided that if our members want it I will run in the Madrid elections.”
Iglesias has put forward Employment Minister Yolanda Díaz as his replacement (with Ione Belarra taking over from Díaz at the employment ministry), although Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has yet to approve those moves.
The regional government in Madrid is a right-leaning coalition of the People’s Party (PP) and Ciudadanos. The snap election comes after Díaz Ayuso of the PP fired the Ciudadanos members of her Cabinet in response to the party trying to oust the PP leader of the south-eastern region of Murcia and fearing they might try to do the same to her.
Díaz Ayuso is facing criticism over her decision to go to the polls in the middle of the pandemic because the crisis has delayed funds being allocated by the regional government to help struggling businesses.
