“I want to be this country’s first female prime minister,” Spanish left-wing leader Yolanda Díaz announced on April 2 as she launched her candidacy for the new left unity platform Sumar. Since taking over from Podemos founder Pablo Iglesias as Spain’s deputy prime minister in April 2021, Díaz has repeatedly polled as the country’s most popular political leader — even outperforming prime minister Pedro Sánchez, of the center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).

A labor lawyer from Galicia and a rank-and-file member of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), Díaz did not enjoy a high profile nationally before she took up her ministerial role in January 2020. But she quickly gained prominence for her negotiation of the Spanish state’s COVID-19 furlough scheme, which guaranteed the wages of 3.5 million workers. Since then, her labor ministry has continued to spearhead some of the PSOE–Unidas Podemos coalition’s most impactful policies, such as the landmark 2022 progressive reform of Spain’s labor laws.

Polling now suggests that a reorganized and united left under her leadership could make important gains in this December’s general election — with Sumar currently projected to secure between 15 and 16.5 percent of the vote (compared to Unidas Podemos’s 13 percent and former ally Màs País’s 2.3 percent in 2019). This would translate into between forty-five and fifty-three MPs.