Pablo Iglesias Turrión

Iglesias was named Pablo after Pablo Iglesias, a labour movement leader who founded the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE) in 1879.

Moving to Soria with his family at the age of two, Iglesias was raised in the latter provincial capital until he was 13 years old, studying in CP Numancia, Infantes de Lara and Las Pedrizas.

After his parents separated, he went back to Madrid with his mother, settling in Vallecas, where he became a member of the Communist Youth when he was 14.

A member of the Global Resistance Movement by the turn of the century, he then took part in anti-globalization protests extolling civil disobedience.

Pablo Iglesias Turrión (born 17 October 1978) is a Spanish political scientist and former politician.

During his political career, he served as Second Deputy Prime Minister and as Minister of Social Rights and 2030 Agenda of the Government of Spain from 2020 to 2021.

Pablo Manuel Iglesias Turrión was born on 17 October 1978 in Madrid, the son of Luisa Turrión, a lawyer for the trade union CCOO (and daughter of the historic PSOE member Manuel Turrión de Eusebio), and Javier Iglesias, a labour inspector and retired history teacher, and, according to Iglesias, former member of the Revolutionary Antifascist Patriotic Front.

From 1996 to 2001 Iglesias studied law (with an average grade on his student record of 7.3/10) at the Complutense University of Madrid and then Political Science (2004), in which he got the best record of his class, an average of 9.22, 13 Honours and he was awarded the Extraordinary Prize of Degree.

He studied at the University of Bologna as part of the Erasmus programme.

Aside from Spanish, he speaks English and Italian.

His doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Heriberto Cairo Carou dealt with civil disobedience of the anti-globalization movement in early 21st-century Spain and Italy and it was titled Multitud y acción colectiva postnacional: un estudio comparativo de los desobedientes: de Italia a Madrid (2000-2005).

Since the early-2000s, Iglesias was involved with the Center for Political and Social Studies Foundation (CEPS) and spent a time in the executive board of the organisation.

During the 2000s, Iglesias was involved in Latin American politics for the CEPS Foundation and monitored elections in Paraguay and Bolivia while acting as a strategic analysis advisor for the government of Venezuela and as a consultant for the government of Bolivia.

Since 2002, he has published more than 30 articles in academic journals.

He has also written articles in media such as Público, Kaosenlared, Diagonal and Rebelion.org.

In 2003, he started a TV show on Tele K (a grassroots TV station from Vallecas): La Tuerka, that was later broadcast by Público TV.

Iglesias also earned the teaching certificate (2004), DEA (2005) and PhD (2008).

He defended in 2008 his dissertation, which was supervised by Heriberto Cairo Carou, and whose subject was collective political action in post-millennial political history.

Iglesias has also obtained a Master of Humanities (2010, honours) from Charles III University with a thesis regarding a political analysis of cinema, and a Master of Arts in Communication (2011, distinction) from the European Graduate School in Switzerland, where he studied political theory, cinema and psychoanalysis.

In 2012, he was hired by United Left's Yolanda Díaz to work as political advisor vis-à-vis the electoral campaign for the 21 October Galician regional election, in which Díaz ran as candidate of the Galician Left Alternative platform.

In January 2013, the broadcasting of Fort Apache was started; the TV show, produced by 360 Global Media and CMI and funded by the Iranian government's HispanTV, featured from 2013 to 2019 a weekly discussion on hot political subjects moderated by Iglesias.

On 25 April 2013, Iglesias was invited to the political talk show El gato al agua (Intereconomía) as panelist.

This marked a breaking point, as the doors to mainstream media opened for Iglesias (until then mostly known in restricted circles), gaining a certain public visibility.

He became a regular of TV political shows, featuring in El cascabel al gato (13TV), La Sexta Noche (La Sexta), Las Mañanas de Cuatro (Cuatro) and La Noche en 24 Horas (24 Horas).

In October 2013, he was given the "Enfocados" prize by the Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication of the Universidad Carlos III of Madrid for his contribution to social change, which he shared with Ignacio Escolar and Jordi Évole in the individual category.

By late 2013, after an informal dinner at Raúl Camargo's residence, which Iglesias, Miguel Urbán, and Jorge Moruno attended, the idea of launching a platform for the 2014 European Parliament election began to take form.

According to Iglesias, he already had the name Podemos in mind, inspired by the homonymously named Tuto Quiroga's Bolivian right-wing platform PODEMOS; the name combined the ideas of 'Power' (poder) and 'Democracy' (democracia).

Iglesias is a co-founder of Podemos, a left-wing political party that he led from 2014 until his resignation in 2021.

Before then, he was a lecturer in political science at the Complutense University of Madrid and TV host.

He was elected to the European Parliament in the 2014 elections as the leading candidate of the newly created Podemos.

On 15 March, he announced that he would be stepping down from the government to run in the Unidas Podemos list for the 2021 Madrilenian regional election, leaving politics shortly after Unidas Podemos' poor performance at the ballots.

He worked as acting senior lecturer of political science at the UCM, where he was named honorary professor in September 2014.

Days after the issuing of the Mover ficha: convertir la indignación en cambio político ("Moving the counter: converting indignation into political change") manifesto on 14 January 2014, Iglesias presented, along with other people and groups, the Podemos movement, intending to run in the European election.

He was elected to lead the list of Podemos (just registered as political party) in open primary elections.

His face was used as logo on the ballot paper as he was better known than the party by that time.

He was then elected to the European Parliament, as the party earned 5 seats at the election.

On 25 June 2014, GUE/NGL, the European Parliament group Podemos joined, elected him as its proposed candidate for the presidency of the European Parliament.

As an MEP, Iglesias served in the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Subcommittee on Human Rights and in the vice-chair of the Delegation for relations with Mercosur.

He was also a substitute for the Subcommittee on Security and Defence and the Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development.

He also served as Member of the Congress of Deputies from 2016 to 2021, representing Madrid.