Izquierda Unida

Izquierda Unida
Party leader	Alberto Garzón
founding	April 1986
Headquarters	Madrid , Spain
Youth organization	Area de juventud de Izquierda Unida
newspaper	La Izquierda
Alignment	Democratic Socialism Communism Eurocommunism
Colours)	red
Spanish House of Representatives	2019 5/350
Spanish Senate	0/266
Number of members	71 578
MEPs	2/59
European party	European left
EP Group	GUE / NGL
Website	www.izquierda-unida.es

The United Left ( Spanish Izquierda Unida , IU ) is a Spanish political party . It is a left-wing socialist party alliance that was founded in 1986 and is led by the communist Alberto Garzón .

IU seats in the Spanish Congress (House of Representatives) since 1977

Since the parliamentary elections in 2016 , Izquierda Unida has been running as part of the Unidos Podemos electoral alliance with the left-wing populist Podemos and other small parties.

Political line-up

The most important force within the IU is the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). In addition to smaller regional and local groups and circles, etc. a. represented the Catalan Esquerra Unida i Alternativa , the Colectivo de Unidad de los Trabajadores-Bloque Andaluz de Izquierdas (Andalusia) and the Partido Obrero Revolucionario . The parties Izquierda Republicana de España and Partido de Acción Socialista , which were among the founding members of the IU, as well as the radical left Corriente Roja and the Basque Greens Berdeak-Los Verdes have left the IU in recent years. In the parliamentary elections on March 14, 2004 , the IU achieved just under 5.0% (2000: 5.4%) and thus had five (2000: eight) MPs. She then supported the PSOE minority government under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero . In the elections on March 9, 2008, IU lost another three seats and thus for the first time its group status in the Spanish parliament. She attributed this primarily to the fact that the smaller Pan-Spanish parties were severely discriminatory. This prefers the two major parties when awarding mandates, which has persuaded many IU supporters to elect the socialists for tactical reasons (so-called voto util ). IU only got a little more than 4% of the votes, which also made up less than one percent of the seats. For the Spanish parliamentary elections in 2011 , the IU, together with twelve other left-wing parties with predominantly regional roots, ran under the name “La Izquierda Plural” and achieved a result of 6.9% (11 MPs).

At the European level, IU is a member of the Party of the European Left and has two MEPs in the 9th electoral term (2019-2024) of the European Parliament, Sira Rego and Manu Pineda .

Regional breakdowns

The regional structures of the IU sometimes have different names. These are:

• Spain
  • Andalusia : Izquierda Unida Los Verdes-Convocatoria por Andalucía (IULV-CA)
  • Aragon : Izquierda Unida de Aragón
  • Asturias : Izquierda Unida de Asturias / Izquierda Xunida d´Asturies (IUA / IXA)
  • Balearic Islands : Esquerra Unida de les Illes Balears (EUIB)
  • Basque Country : Ezker Anitza (EzAn)
  • Ceuta : Izquierda Unida de Ceuta
  • Extremadura : Izquierda Unida-Verdes-Compromiso por Extremadura (IU-V-CE)
  • Galicia : Esquerda Unida-Izquierda Unida (EU-IU)
  • Canary Islands : Izquierda Unida Canaria
  • Cantabria : Izquierda Unida de Cantabria
  • Castile-La Mancha : Izquierda Unida de Castilla-La Mancha (IUCM)
  • Castile and León : Izquierda Unida de Castilla y León (IUCyL)
  • Catalonia : Esquerra Unida i Alternativa (EUiA), not to be confused with the former Iniciativa per Catalunya Verds (ICV), with whom it often competes with joint lists for elections. Organizationally, however, both are independent of each other.
  • La Rioja : Izquierda Unida de La Rioja
  • Madrid : Izquierda Unida-Madrid (IU-Madrid or IU-M), the new association IU-M was created in 2016 after the Izquierda Unida de la Comunidad de Madrid (United Left of the Community of Madrid) was excluded in 2015.
  • Melilla : Izquierda Unida de Melilla
  • Murcia : Izquierda Unida Verdes de la Región de Murcia (IUV-RM)
  • Navarra : Izquierda Unida de Navarra / Nafarroako Ezker Batua (IUN-NEB)
  • Valencia : Esquerra Unida del País Valencià (EUPV)
• International
  • Izquierda Unida Exterior (Izquierda Unida Abroad)

In June 2015, the IU decided to exclude the previous division in the Madrid region , which was a legally independent party member of the IU party alliance under the name Izquierda Unida de la Comunidad de Madrid (IUCM). A new structure for this region as a legally not independent regional association is being set up.

Municipal strongholds

The IU appointed Rosa Aguilar and later Andrés Ocaña as the mayor of Córdoba from 1999 to 2011 . From 2003 to 2007 the IU had the absolute majority of the municipal governments in Carmona, Andalusia . In the Madrid suburb of San Fernando de Henares , Julio Setién Martínez has been ruling in a coalition with the PSOE since 2007. From 1999 to 2007, the IU ruled with an absolute majority under Monserrat Muñoz. In the neighboring town of Rivas-Vaciamadrid , it also provides the mayor.

See also

• Political parties in Spain

Web links

Commons : Izquierda Unida  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official Website (Spanish)
• United Left Goes Right and Splits Critical Article on wsws.org