“When your role within your organization and your task to improve democracy in this country becomes greatly limited and mobilizes the worst elements of those who hate it, certain decisions have to be taken without hesitation.” These were the words of Podemos cofounder Pablo Iglesias as he announced his shock decision to step back with immediate effect not only from the formation he had led for seven years prior to last night — but from frontline politics altogether.

In early March, he stunned Spanish political circles by announcing he was standing down as the country’s deputy prime minister, only fourteen months after Unidas Podemos had entered coalition with the center-left Socialist Party (PSOE). In a bombshell video released on social media, he explained he was doing so in order to lead his party’s regional force in snap Madrid elections held yesterday — with the hope his presence in the campaign would reverse Unidas Podemos’ declining fortunes in the polls.

Yet as the final votes were counted last night, it was already obvious that Iglesias’s candidacy had become exhausted after several intense electoral cycles, among other factors. “These results make it clear that at present I’m not a figure who can help the party make [significant] gains and contribute toward it consolidating its institutional weight,” as he put it. His campaign run improved Unidas Podemos’ standing slightly on its 2019 result — securing just over 7 percent of the vote and ten seats — while PSOE suffered its worst-ever outcome in the capital to the benefit, it seemed, of the Más Madrid party set up during a Podemos split in 2019.