The guardian, article on Podemos

Across Spain, everyone has an opinion about Pablo Iglesias. Mere mention of the
ponytailed leader of the insurgent leftwing party Podemos (We Can), who is only 35,
elicits a barrage of adjectives that range from honest to dangerous.
There was the woman in Barcelona who gushed that "he seems like such a decent person"
as she explained why she had cast her first vote in a decade and given it to Podemos. Or
the worries expressed by the monarchist from San Sebastin who spent hours waiting on
a sunny morning in Madrid to catch a glimpse of Felipe VI on his first day as the new
king of Spain. "Iglesias wants to turn Spain into the next Venezuela."
In only a month, Iglesias has gone from well-known political pundit to member of the
European parliament and one of Spain's most polarising personalities. Soft-spoken and
calm, Iglesias shrugs off the attention. "I'm a normal person," he said. Active in left-
leaning politics since he was 14, he describes himself as "a guy who worked in the
university for many years, as a researcher, then as a professor".
Wearing a shirt lined with the red, yellow and purple colours of the Spanish republic,
Iglesias pulled loose his ponytail as the interview started, his long brown hair falling over
his shoulders for a moment before he tied it back into his signature style.
Sleep, he said in a voice tinged with exhaustion, had been hard to come by recently, lost
amid a whirlwind of press conferences, party meetings, travels back and forth to Brussels
in his new role and media appearances. "Very intense" is how Iglesias described the last
month. "The truth is that ever since the election we've been overwhelmed by the response,
the media attention, the hope of the people. But we're very hopeful because we think that
we're contributing to something historic the political change in our country."
A month ago Podemos came seemingly out of nowhere to capture 1.2 million votes and
five seats in the European elections. Registered in March this year with the intention of
turning the anger of Spain'sindignados into real political change, Podemos became the
third political force in many regions of Spain, including Madrid.
The anti-austerity party's list of election promises includes higher minimum wages, doing
away with tax havens and EU border controls, the nationalisation of utilities and banks
that were rescued with public funds, establishing a guaranteed minimum income and
lowering the retirement age to 60.
While the elections saw many countries turn to Eurosceptic parties, many Spanish voters
turned sharply left, harvesting votes from the country's two dominant parties in the wake
of an economic crisis and years of corruption scandals. The governing People's party and
the Socialists received less than half of the vote, a far cry from the 81% support they got
in 2009.
The day after the election, Socialist leader Alfredo Prez Rubalcaba said he would be
stepping down. A week later King Juan Carlos announced he was abdicating in favour of
his son, Felipe. Both changes, according to analysts, were rooted in the clear demand for
change expressed by voters in the European elections.
For Iglesias, it's the beginning of the end for the regime that has governed Spain since
1978. "In some ways, it's their institutions that are in crisis: a monarchy that's more and
more identified with impunity and corruption and the established political caste of the
regime." The goal of Podemos was to turn the social majority into the political majority,
said Iglesias, by having ordinary citizens do politics. "If people don't do politics, others
will do it for you. And when others do it for you, they can steal your rights, your
democracy and your wallet."
Solutions for the country, Iglesias has insisted repeatedly, come not from the adherence
to leftwing or rightwing ideology, but rather in a movement against a privileged elite
whose priorities are out of synch with what is best for most Spaniards.
The party's success came earlier than expected, sending the Podemos leadership
scrambling to formalise the movement and prove it is more than just a phenomenon
fuelled by protest votes. Lacking member lists, leadership to inform on day-to-day
decisions and a system to hold its MEPs accountable, Podemos is now on a quest to find
a balance between being a grassroots movement informed by a loose network of hundreds
of working groups across the country and a functioning political party.
The clash between the two priorities was on display last month after Iglesias announced
he was nominating a list of 25 people to organise a general assembly in the autumn and
gave others six days to present competing lists. Some grassroots members criticised what
they saw as an affront to Podemos's open structure.
It is still not clear how the party will work. Many of the answers, said Iglesias, would
come in October at a general assembly where the emphasis would be on designing tools
that allowed the party to respect its participative style and commitment to direct
democracy. Critics suggest the emphasis on participation might be the party's achilles
heel, in that it leads to ideas that, while popular, may not be workable. Others question
the ability of Spain's fragile economy to withstand deep changes as it emerges from a
long recession.
Iglesias brushed off these worries. "You can't be scared of democracy. These arguments
that participation can be contradictory with efficiency is contrary to the very idea of
democracy." He likened it to critics of universal suffrage who argued that it would cause
chaos if everyone were able to vote. "We've seen that this isn't true."
In a country where one in four is unemployed and more than 150,000 families have been
evicted from their homes in the last five years, Iglesias argues that pragmatism is relative.
"It's not realistic that we have six million unemployed and that you can be poor even if
you have a job," he said. "Our measures aren't very radical. They are measures that are
very prudent along the lines of a project to save the country in the face of a crisis."
Polls suggest the party is gaining ground, showing that it could win between 30 and 58
seats in the Spanish parliament and capture as much as 15% of the vote, almost double
the percentage it received in the European elections.
But as Podemos rises in the polls, so does scrutiny of Iglesias. He has been compared to
Adolf Hitler and Fidel Castro and called a freak and extremist.
 Others have taken aim at his words he has been accused of justifying terrorism at the
hands of Eta after he said that the group's violence "had political explanations" that
needed to be understood in order to find democratic solutions.
At times the attacks had been amusing, he said, pointing to those who took aim at the fact
that he bought his clothes at a low-cost supermarket. "I never thought it would be a subject
of interest or that it would generate so much controversy," he said, smiling.
The attacks neither surprise nor bother Iglesias. To him, it is a demonstration that
Podemos is making those in power nervous. "That's why they insult, defame, scream. It's
a sign that they're worried."
Now the pressure is on for one of Spain's most polemical politicians to turn that worry
into real political change. While he refused to rule out leading the country one day,
Iglesias said his focus now was on political contribution.
"We want a more decent country. A country with public services, a country where nobody
is thrown out of their house, a country with public hospitals, public pensions, a country
in which if you have work you can fill the fridge and buy school supplies for your
children," he said. He shrugged as he added: "Just the simple things."

A PARTY FORGED IN PROTEST

The indignados protests began on 15 May 2011, as Spain suffered the pain of austerity
and mass unemployment. Alienated by mainstream politics, protesters gathered in squares
across Spain to call for radical change.
In Madrid, the Puerta del Sol became the symbolic hub of the movement, as activists
camped out, held debates and staged what became a kind of festival of alternative politics.
The Puerta del Sol camp was eventually, and controversially, broken up by police.
While the original movement spurned political conventions, the formation of Podemos in
March 2014 signalled a desire among leftwing indignadosto build on the high-profile
protests.
The new party, committed to greater public ownership, a green agenda and radical
democratic reform, received 50,000 signatures of support on the first day of its existence.
In the European elections in May it polled nearly 8% of the vote and elected 5 MEPs,
including its figurehead, Pablo Iglesias. The MEPs have refused to take full salaries, in
solidarity with low-paid Spanish workers.