When Podemos’s cofounders clashed at the Vistalegre II congress in February 2017, a key bone of contention was relations with the center-left Socialists (PSOE) after a failed bid to form a coalition government in 2016. For secretary-general Pablo Iglesias, this pillar of Spain’s institutions was too wedded to the neoliberal center to be a plausible ally. But a minority led by Íñigo Errejón insisted that Podemos above all needed to show Spaniards that it was ready to govern, if it was to reach beyond its existing young and urban base.

Fast forward to today, and not only is the party (today called Unidas Podemos, UP) weakened, but roles have changed radically. It was Iglesias who finally led the party at the start of 2020 into coalition with Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE, but with its parliamentary strength halved after four general elections in four years. The broad left coalition’s first year in government brought some important legislation, but also political setbacks for UP — and this spring Iglesias quit as deputy prime minister, before retiring from frontline politics altogether.

As for cofounder Errejón, he left Podemos at the start of 2019, and is now leader of Más País, a small green-progressive force whose three MPs provide confidence and supply to the PSOE-UP government. In an interview with Jacobin’s Àngel Ferrero, Errejón revisits the 15-M protest movement that helped give rise to Podemos, his time in the party, and its failed bid to transform Spanish politics — opening the way to a new insurgency by the nationalist right.