Cracks along the envisioned “southern European” leftist front appeared on its western end this week, with the leader of Spain’s Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, announced on Thursday that one of the anti-austerity bloc’s co-founders, Juan Carlos Monedero, had resigned from a leading post.

Monedero’s came hours after he criticised the direction Podemos – Spain’s equivalent of Greece’s SYRIZA — was taking.

The high-profile political science professor said the left-wing party was beginning to resemble the mainstream political forces it was battling. Moreover, he said it should return to its anti-establishment roots.

“Podemos is falling into these kinds of problems because it no longer has the time to meet with the small circles (its grass-roots supporters), because it’s more important to get one minute of television airtime or to do something that adds to the collective strategy,” he said in a radio interview.

The once high-flying anti-austerity party now appears in third or fourth place, depending on which opinion poll you survey.