We will be the cement holding three pillars together
En las elecciones gallegas del 18 de febrero, Marta Lois encabeza la candidatura de Sumar con una apuesta inusual: no aspira a gobernar en solitario, sino a ser el eslabón que una a socialistas y nacionalistas en una coalición capaz de romper quince años de mayoría absoluta del PP. Es una estrategia que reconoce la fragmentación histórica de la izquierda gallega y la convierte en argumento: solo sumando, en el sentido más literal, puede cambiar el mapa político de una región que lleva década y media gobernada por un solo partido.
- El PP de Alfonso Rueda lleva 15 años gobernando Galicia en solitario, y la izquierda nunca ha logrado articular una alternativa cohesionada que le dispute ese dominio.
- Sumar llega a su primera campaña autonómica sin aspirar a la presidencia, pero reclamando el papel de bisagra imprescindible entre el PSdeG y el BNG, un rol modesto en apariencia pero cargado de poder real.
- Lois agita propuestas concretas —control de alquileres, renta joven de 600 euros, nacionalización de la AP-9— para demostrar que Sumar empuja más lejos que los socialistas en la agenda social.
- El PP intenta convertir la ley de amnistía en el eje del debate, pero Lois lo descarta como ruido electoral y señala la crisis de los pellets como prueba más honesta de la gestión de Rueda.
- El resultado del 18-F decidirá si el tripartito progresista es aritméticamente posible y si Lois conserva su peso dentro de la estructura nacional de Sumar.
Marta Lois, viguesina de 54 años y hasta hace poco portavoz parlamentaria de Sumar en Madrid, lidera la candidatura de su partido en las elecciones gallegas del 18 de febrero. Su teoría es clara y, en cierto modo, contracorriente: Sumar no aspira a ganar, sino a ser el cemento de una coalición tripartita con el PSdeG y el BNG que logre lo que la izquierda gallega no ha conseguido en 15 años: desalojar al PP de la Xunta.
Lois no reclama la presidencia. Se presenta como la fuerza que puede empujar más lejos que los socialistas en cuestiones sociales y tender puentes donde antes hubo competencia interna. Es una posición de palanca, no de protagonismo, pero con ella reivindica un papel decisivo en la aritmética parlamentaria. En las generales de 2023, Sumar quedó tercero en Galicia; ahora apuesta a que ese voto consolidado, sumado al de sus socios potenciales, baste para cambiar el gobierno.
Su programa refleja esa ambición social: revertir los recortes en atención primaria, aplicar la ley estatal de vivienda para controlar alquileres y frenar los pisos turísticos, ofrecer una renta universal de 600 euros mensuales para jóvenes de 18 a 30 años, y nacionalizar la autopista AP-9, cuya concesión privada considera un drenaje continuo de dinero público.
Cuando el PP intenta centrar la campaña en la amnistía, Lois lo rechaza como distracción. Los gallegos piensan en sanidad, vivienda, educación y pensiones, dice. Y añade que si Rueda quiere debatir de amnistía, que se presente en Cataluña. La crisis de los pellets —un desastre medioambiental que, según ella, evidenció la falta de transparencia y de protocolos del gobierno autonómico— le parece un retrato más fiel de la gestión del PP.
Sobre su futuro tras el 18-F, Lois no cierra puertas ni las abre del todo. Su prioridad ahora es Galicia. Lo que venga después dependerá de los resultados. Por el momento, su apuesta es demostrar que tres partidos juntos pueden hacer lo que ninguno ha podido solo.
Marta Lois, a 54-year-old from Vigo who spent the last weeks as a parliamentary spokesperson in Madrid, is leading Sumar into its first regional election campaign. She is running for president of Galicia's regional government on February 18, and she has a clear theory of the case: her party is not meant to win outright, but to be the glue that holds together a three-way progressive coalition capable of finally breaking the People's Party's 15-year grip on absolute power.
For the past decade and a half, the PP under Alfonso Rueda has governed Galicia alone. The left has been fractured. Lois, who was a city councilor in Santiago de Compostela before joining Sumar's national leadership, believes the math works only if progressive voters consolidate around three parties instead of scattering their votes. In the 2023 general elections, Sumar finished third in Galicia. She argues that if her party runs strong this time, the combined strength of Sumar, the Socialist Party of Galicia, and the Galician Nationalist Bloc—the BNG—will be enough to push the PP into opposition.
When asked where Sumar fits in a hypothetical three-party government, Lois does not claim the top spot. Instead, she describes her party as the cement holding three pillars together. She is explicit about this: Sumar will be the force that pushes harder on progressive issues than the Socialists would alone, the party that bridges gaps and enables big agreements without the kind of internal competition that plagued earlier left-wing coalitions in Galicia. It is a modest framing, but it is also a claim to real leverage.
Her platform reflects that positioning. Lois wants to reverse what she calls the systematic dismantling of public services under the PP—particularly in primary health care. She proposes capping rental prices and cracking down on the conversion of residential housing into tourist apartments, using the state housing law as a template. For young people, she is offering a universal income of 600 euros a month for those aged 18 to 30, a response to data showing that young Galicians are taking longer to leave home than their Spanish peers. She also wants to nationalize the AP-9 highway, ending what she sees as endless public subsidies to the private concessionaire Audasa.
When the conversation turns to the PP's attempts to make the amnesty law a campaign issue, Lois dismisses it as a distraction. She argues that Galicians are not thinking about amnesty or the breakup of Spain; they are thinking about housing, health care, education, and pensions. She goes further, suggesting that if Rueda wants to keep agitating about amnesty, he should run for office in Catalonia instead. The pellets crisis—an environmental disaster that exposed what she calls the PP government's lack of transparency and failure to follow emergency protocols—is, in her view, a more telling indictment of Rueda's competence.
On the question of whether Galicia is understood in Madrid, Lois gives a careful answer. Galicia can be understood from anywhere if people want to understand it, she says. From the Madrid of working people who share Galicia's struggles with privatized health care and housing costs, yes. From the Madrid of the elites that the PP governs for, no—they do not understand Galicia or much else about social progress. It is a way of saying that her party's national government gets it, even if the opposition does not.
As for her own future, Lois says her absolute priority right now is Galicia. She wants all progressive forces fully committed to the campaign. What happens after February 18 will depend on the results, but her commitment to Sumar remains unchanged. She is, in other words, keeping her options open while staying focused on the immediate task: making the case that three parties working together can do what one party alone has not been able to do for 15 years.
Citações Notáveis
We will be the cement of a government with three pillars, a political force with its own character that always goes further than the Socialists want to go.— Marta Lois, Sumar candidate for president of Galicia
Galicians are not thinking about amnesty or the breakup of Spain. If Rueda wants to keep agitating about that, he should run for office in Catalonia.— Marta Lois
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does Sumar need to exist as a separate force if the goal is just to beat the PP? Why not merge with the Socialists or the BNG?
Because if we merge, we disappear. The whole point is that we push further left than the Socialists are comfortable going. We want housing controls, we want to nationalize infrastructure, we want a universal income for young people. The Socialists would water that down. We need to be distinct so we can pull the coalition in that direction.
But doesn't that risk splitting the vote and letting the PP win?
Only if voters don't understand what we're doing. We're not competing with the BNG or the Socialists—we're saying, vote for us, and we'll make sure all three of us together can govern. The math works if people believe that.
What about the fact that Anova, another left-wing party, decided to support the BNG instead of running separately?
Anova already asked people to vote for the BNG in the general elections, and we still came in third. So that didn't hurt us then. People understand the difference between us.
You mention the pellets crisis as evidence that Rueda can't govern. But isn't that a pretty narrow issue?
It's not narrow at all. It shows a pattern—the same failures in emergency response, the same lack of transparency, the same political manipulation we saw with the Prestige disaster twenty years ago. It's about whether the government can actually protect people when things go wrong.
The PP keeps bringing up amnesty. Does that worry you?
It worries me that they think it's a winning issue. But Galicians are worried about rent, about waiting lists in hospitals, about whether their kids can afford to live here. Amnesty is a Madrid issue, a Catalonia issue. If Rueda wants to run on that, he's running the wrong campaign for the wrong place.
What if you don't get into government? What happens to Sumar then?
Then we've done what we could. But I'm focused on winning right now, not on what comes after.