A faction of the Communist Party led by former party leader Elia Agramunt has split from the Communist Party, instead joining the Left Alliance, in the latest drama to embroil the beleaguered Communists since the civil war in 2018. Agramunt saw the Communist Party completely wiped out when leading the party into the 2024 election, with the party’s votes splitting primarily between the more anti-authoritarian Left Alliance and the authoritarian True Communist Movement. Now, Agramunt is leading her faction of “compassionate communists” out of the party to join the very Alliance that contributed to wiping them out.
The Left Alliance, first founded in 1972 as the only legal alternative to the Communist Party at the time, is a party formed of an alliance of smaller socialist and left-libertarian parties which have formed a long-standing electoral pact. Nowadays they are seen as the go-to party for people on the farther left who espouse anti-authoritarian ideas and oppose the prior Communist regime of 1952-93. Given the party’s history as opposition to the Communist Party, the entry of a faction from that party, led by one of its former leaders no less, may be likely to provoke some controversy.
Agramunt herself provoked controversy during her Communist leadership by taking the party in a more anti-authoritarian direction, calling her new ideology “compassionate communism” and trying to distance the party from both the 20th century regime and those who supported the 2018 coup by Suleman Chaher. This was controversial in the party, leading to a party split which saw her predecessor Javier Flynn found the True Communist Movement, which won 26 seats in the 2024 election to the Communists 0. Commentators around the 2024 election suggested that there was little place for another far-left anti-authoritarian party – which Agramunt may have now realised.
The remnants of the Communist Party post-2024 have failed to stick to a coherent ideology, with Agramunt’s faction fighting against both regime nostalgia, and Flynn supporters who could not countenance the idea of leaving the party. With the “compassionate communists” jumping ship, it’s likely the party remnants will fall back into old ideological patterns, despite these becoming less and less popular with the Lauchenoirian population in the aftermath of the Second Civil War.
