Cash for teens and a four-day week: Díaz revives leftist hopes

Sumar coalition leader says practical solutions can fend off the far-right threat in snap election

-  Sam Jones

Just over a year ago, Yolanda Díaz gave a newspaper interview that appeared under the pleasingly provocative headline: "No basta con gestionar, a este Gobierno le falta alma" - "Running things isn't enough; this government lacks spirit."

While alma could also be translated as soul, heart or enthusiasm, the thrust of Díaz's comments to El País was perfectly clear. Despite being a key figure in Pedro Sánchez's Socialist-led minority administration - she serves as labour minister and second deputy prime minister -Díaz believes governing is about more than just delivery. For her, politicians are there to improve people's lives, to defend and increase hard-won rights, and to leave their country in a better state than they found it. Still, as she told the paper, the odd "happy policy" never does any harm either.

Twelve months on, as Spain faces a snap general election that could result in a coalition between the conservative People's party (PP) and far-right Vox party, Díaz is putting her policies and her alma to the test.

The new Sumar movement she leads - a platform of leftwing, far-left and green parties including the beleaguered Podemos, once the great new hope of the Spanish left - is hoping that, with the Socialists, it will pick up enough votes to keep the PP and Vox out of power.

Like Sánchez, who has sought to portray the election as a Manichean choice between all that is progressive and all that is reactionary, Díaz is blunt about what is at stake.