Carolina Bescansa

Bescansa is from Santiago de Compostela.^[1] She studied Sociology and Political Science in Grenada and Madrid, focusing specifically on political sociology and the study of constitutional law.^[1][2] After graduating in 1994, she did a specialist degree in constitutional law at the Centre for Political and Constitutional Studies.^[3] She then became a doctoral student at the Complutense University of Madrid, and in the 1999–2000 school year she participated in an Education Abroad Program at the University of California, San Diego.^[3]

In 1995, she began to teach political science classes at the Complutense University of Madrid, where she became a member of the political science faculty specializing in the methodology of political science research.^[3]

Bescansa was a co-founder of the political party Podemos, officially registering it as a political party on 11 March 2014 together with Pablo Iglesias Turrión and Juan Carlos Monedero.^[1]

In 2014, Bescansa was not on the party list of Podemos, but that year she was elected to the Citizens' Council of the party with about 85% of the votes.^[4] This made her the most powerful woman and one of the three most powerful people in the party organization.^[5] Bescansa also used her expertise as a political science methodologist in her partisan work, heading the party's political analysis unit and analysing its surveys.^[5]

In the 2015 Spanish general election, Bescansa was ranked second on the Podemos party list to the Congress of Deputies for the Madrid constituency, and she won the seat.^[6] She launched a candidacy for President of the Congress of Deputies, but lost the race to Patxi López.^[7]

In 2017, Bescansa publicly split with the leadership of Podemos, and left her positions within the party.^[8] She was subsequently affiliated with a coalition of Más País and Equo.^[8]