Posted24. July 2023, 05:31
Spain: Negotiations begin to avoid new elections
The Socialists like the right, allied with the extreme right, do not seem to be able to form a government after the legislative elections on Sunday.
Pedro Sánchez, in Madrid after the Spanish legislative elections, Sunday July 23, 2023.
AFP
In the aftermath of elections that failed to achieve a majority, Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his conservative rival Alberto Núñez Feijóo, whose party won the largest number of deputies, will begin negotiations on Monday to try to avoid new elections. Thwarting all the polls, which had been showing him largely beaten for months, Pedro Sánchez managed to limit the gains of the right-wing opposition.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s People’s Party (PP) finally won 136 seats out of a total of 350 in the Congress of Deputies, while the far-right Vox party, its only potential ally, won 33. They therefore only total 169 seats, far from an absolute majority, which is 176.
Opposite, the Socialist Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez has 122 deputies and Sumar, his radical left ally, 31. In front of euphoric militants – shouting “No pasarán” (“They will not pass!”), famous anti-fascist slogan of the Civil War (1936-1939) -, the Prime Minister claimed his ability to continue to lead Spain.
“Not pass”
“The retrograde bloc of the People’s Party and Vox has been defeated. Many more of us want Spain to keep moving forward and so it will be,” he said. With its 153 deputies, the PSOE/Sumar alliance will therefore need the support of several regionalist formations such as the Catalans of ERC or the Basques of Bildu, a formation considered to be the heir to the political showcase of ETA.
But they will also have to ensure the abstention of the Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont’s party, Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), whose leaders have already warned that they will not help Pedro Sánchez to stay in power without compensation. If all these conditions are met, Pedro Sánchez could then gather on his name 172 deputies, more than the leader of the PP, which would be enough for him during a second vote of investiture by Parliament, where only a simple majority is required.
Otherwise, Spain, which has already experienced four general elections between 2015 and 2019, would find itself in a situation of political deadlock and would be condemned to a new ballot. Narrow winner on the paper of this ballot, Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself claimed the right to form a government. The PP has “won the elections” and “our obligation now is to prevent a period of uncertainty from opening in Spain,” he said from the balcony of the party headquarters.
“Not easy”
“I will undertake to start a dialogue” with the forces represented in Parliament “to form a government”, he added, asking the Socialists not to “block” it. “We’re going to talk a lot over the next few days and weeks” and “it won’t be easy,” he acknowledged.
Without an absolute majority with Vox, Alberto Núñez Feijóo wants to govern in a minority, but for that he would need the abstention of the Socialists during a vote of investiture in Parliament. However, the Socialists have already made it known that they have no intention of doing so.
Wanting to regain the initiative after the rout of the left in the local elections on May 28, Pedro Sánchez had called this early election and campaigned on the fear of the far right entering the government in the event of a victory for the PP. A strategy that seems to have paid off, with turnout reaching nearly 70%, or 3.5 points more than in the last election, in November 2019.
(AFP)
2023-07-24 05:45:39
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