Former vice president of government and former leader of United We Can Pablo Iglesias failed to get the position of associate professor at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) Faculty of Political Sciences. The court in charge of evaluating the six candidates who underwent the selection process has decided to exclude them all for different reasons. Through his social media, Iglesias has described the case as “extremely strange” and “utterly rare.” The court’s decision of November 4 says that in Iglesias’ case – as in the case of three other applicants – no professional experience will be recognized in matters related to the profile of the position or of any other kind. The letter, which Iglesias shared, informs that there is a 10-day period to make claims.
Applicants for a position for which “experience in consulting in political analysis” was required had to prove their professional activity outside the university academic field in the advertised subject and prove at least three years of activity. Professional related to the profile of the position. Four of them failed to meet these two requirements, according to the document. The other two applicants were rejected because they did not justify payment of the fees.
“It is not often that all candidates who choose a position with these characteristics are excluded,” said Iglesias. “You can check the vacancies in the same knowledge area on the UCM website. You will see that the same candidates were not excluded on other occasions. It is enough to google the names of the candidates to confirm that some of us are political science professionals with recognized professional and teaching experience.”
Last July I applied for a position as Associate Professor of Political Science at Complutense University. I open thread 👇🏻
— Pablo Iglesias 🔻 (@PabloIglesias) November 7, 2022
It is not the first time that Iglesias has been excluded from a teaching position at the Complutense. The former head of Unidas Podemos had also applied for the position of associate professor at the Faculty of Information Sciences to conduct information courses on radio and television. Last October, it turned out that he had failed the tests: he received four out of ten points and finished fifth out of a total of seven applicants.
Iglesias holds a PhD in Political Science from the Complutense University and was already associated with this institution as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Political Science before founding Podemos on January 17, 2014 and entering politics. In January 2020, he was appointed second vice president in Pedro Sánchez’s government. He resigned from that position in March 2021 to stand as a candidate for Podemos in the 4 May Community of Madrid elections, in coalition with Izquierda Unida. He won 10 of the 136 seats in the Madrid Assembly and announced on election night that he was leaving politics and his post as Podemos’ general secretary. He currently directs and hosts the La Base podcast in the Público newspaper and is a contributor to several digital press and radio media such as CTXT, Ara, Gara, RAC1 or Cadena SER.
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