UP leader Pablo Iglesias in early 2021 resigned from his post as the government’s second deputy prime minister – also referred to as “second vice-president.” Díaz replaced him there and also as leader of the UP. Polling suggests that Díaz now is “Spain’s most highly regarded politician.”

Yolanda Díaz is in the news. She recently criticized the strong-arm tactics of government security forces in confronting an eventually successful strike in Cadiz involving 20,000 metalworkers. “The key role of the UP in the government in blocking repression and confronting liberal sectors of the PSOE” was clear, according to the PCE’s Mundo Obrero news service.

Díaz on November 13 joined four other political leaders, all women, before an audience in Valencia. They were exploring what they called “Other Politics.” She told listeners that, “We are you,” and we … “know that my country wants to move, advance and guarantee equality.” Her appearance prompted enthusiastic applause and, in reference to her political future, shouts of “President! President!”

As labor minister, Díaz has gained recognition for leading negotiations aimed at repealing or reforming anti-worker labor laws. She has worked with unions and business groups to secure furloughs and monetary support for workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She resists Iglesias’s preference for early national elections, an idea opposed by Prime Minister Pablo Sanchez. She states that, rather than deal with elections, she wants “to govern, to govern, to govern.” She is angling for an electoral coalition, a broad front, that would eventually include the PSOE.

Díaz speaks out. Pablo Casado currently heads the rightwing People’s Party (PP), which has long served as the main conservative force opposing the PSOE in national elections. On November 20, Pablo Casado attended a mass celebrated at Granada’s Cathedral for dictator Francisco Franco, who died on that day 46 years ago.

Responding, Díaz told reporters that “Casado must immediately provide explanations and rectify what he has done,” adding that, “Catholics and believers in this country do not understand this type of performance.”

Conservatives have castigated Díaz since the publication in mid-September of a new edition of The Communist Manifesto that contains a prologue she authored. (It appears below in English translation). The PCE republished the Manifesto as part of its centennial celebrations.

The People’s Party bench in the Chamber of Delegates called upon the PSOE government to take responsibility for Díaz’s prologue. PP spokesperson Edurne Uriarte denounced Diaz’s portrayal of the Manifesto, pointing to her reference to a “magical and timeless book” and her praise for its “impassioned defense of democracy and freedom.”

Defending Díaz, former Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias noted that “the PP was founded by seven ministers of the dictatorship.” He suggested that “the PCE and the workers movement have a lot more democratic credentials than does the Spanish right.” The socialist government of Pablo Sanchez has evaded the issue.

After her legal education, Díaz studied urban planning, labor relations, and human resources. She worked as a labor lawyer, was a municipal councilor, and served in Galicia’s parliament. Since 2016, voters have repeatedly returned her to Spain’s Chamber of Deputies. From 2005 to 2017, she coordinated the Galician federation of the United Left. She served as an advisor for Pablo Iglesias when he formed Podemos in 2012.

Díaz’s current role as tribune of Spain’s radical left is no accident. At age one, she was held in the arms of her imprisoned father Suso Díaz. As a Communist Party member necessarily working underground, he had resisted measures of the Franco dictatorship. Suso Díaz and his brother Xosé were prominent Galician labor leaders, and Suso has remained such. Suso Díaz remarked recently that people used to refer to Yolanda as “the daughter of Suso.” Now he is “the father of Yolanda.”

Diaz is also a Marxist theoretician. In a prologue to the 'Communist Manifesto,' she writes.

‘The thinking of Karl Marx appears to have been written, in indelible ink, on the wind of history. It always resurfaces in a context of social and economic crisis, with all of its clarity and its capacity for stimulating reflection. His look at the mechanisms of capitalist production still illuminates and helps us understand the major problems of our world and our time.’

‘There are many Marxisms in Marx, many dissenting views, many rescues. There are post-colonialist viewpoints and orthodox views, condemnations of his patriarchal leanings, and celebrations of his affinity with nature and the environment. Whatever the case, as social theorist Marx disrupted the ideologic framework of the bourgeoisie, of capitalism. He pulled apart the seams and pitfalls of their language and, at the same time, their capability for dominating.’ (People’s World — IPA Service)