2023-10-02 23:00:52
For the second time in six weeks and after the failure of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the leader of the Popular Party who did not achieve the support of Congress to be president, King Felipe VI another round of consultations with political parties began this Monday who have parliamentary representation to look for a new candidate for president of the government of Spain.
All eyes are on the current head of the acting government and PSOE candidate for re-election, Pedro Sánchez.
Sánchez has been waiting for this moment for more than two monthsdespite the fact that in the general elections of July 23 he came second, behind Núñez Feijóo.
As head of state, It is the king who designates who the applicant is with more possibilities of obtaining the confidence of Parliament to be invested as president.
He did so at the end of August, when he anointed Núñez Feijóo, who received the most votes in the July general elections.
The PP candidate then took more than a month to negotiate his investiture, which was frustrated by four votes: It was necessary for it to have the approval of half plus one of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, but it only obtained 172.
His investiture debate, which took place on September 26, and the vote, which took place on the 27th and 29th, They activated the countdown that most worries the Spaniards. The one that deducts days from the time available, according to Spanish legislation, to form a new government.
Because the deadlines are not infinite. The regulation states that, from the first failure in the vote for an investiture, there are two months to try others.
Only 72 hours later
If Spain reaches November 27 without a new president, Felipe VI will dissolve the Cortes and there will be a repeat election. To avoid this, the king summoned, just 72 hours after Núñez Feijóo’s failure, a new round of consultation with the leaders of the political parties that make up Congress.
They will receive them, between this Monday and Tuesday, from lowest to highest parliamentary representation, that is, in ascending order and according to the number of votes they obtained in the July elections.
The president of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, in Parliament. Reuters Photo
This Monday, at the Zarzuela Palace, Felipe VI met, in turns and in individual meetings, with the representatives of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro, the Canarian Coalition, the Basque Nationalist Party, Sumar and Vox.
They are scheduled for Tuesday the current head of the acting government and PSOE candidate for re-election, Pedro Sánchezand the leader of the PP and failed candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
Those who say “no” to the king
This Monday, the Catalan and Basque independentists – from Esquerra Republicana de Caraluña, Junts per Catalunya and EH Bildu – and the BNG, the Galician nationalist party, should also have attended the call of the head of state, but, consistent with their position on to the monarchy, They left the king standing.
The parliamentarians who pass through the Zarzuela usually then attend the Congress where they comment on what they said to the king.
This Monday, except for the Basque Nationalist Party, which did not appear in Parliament after its meeting with Felipe VI, the rest of the parties they did not confirm supporting a possible candidacy of Pedro Sánchez for the investiture.
Not even his main partner for a probable coalition government, Yolanda Díaz, his current acting Labor Minister and leader of Sumar.
Sumar brings together the left-wing parties to the left of the PSOE and will end up agreeing with Sánchezalthough now he demands agreements prior to the possible investiture.
“Sumar wants to win rights for Spain and this is the contribution we humbly want to make in that future coalition government. But today we are far from reaching that agreement,” Díaz said after meeting with the king.
Lack of support
As happened to Núñez Feijóo, Pedro Sánchez does not have the necessary support either. so that Parliament appoints him president.
but youHe has more waist to negotiate with the Catalan and Basque independence movement as he already agreed in 2019, when he achieved the investiture with the support of separatism.
This time, however, the Catalans raise the bar when it comes to giving him a yes: they could facilitate his re-election in exchange for an amnesty for those who committed crimes related to the illegal self-determination referendum and the 2017 declaration of independence of Catalonia.
The Spanish Constitution does not contemplate amnesty and although Sánchez is studying how to implement it, Catalan sovereignty demands more from him: amnesty and a self-determination referendum.
From the PSOE, for now, they do not allow any possibility of implementing a popular consultation in Catalonia so that its people vote if they want to stay inside or outside of Spain.
But this is the hot iron on which a future inauguration of the current acting president could depend.
This Monday, the Union of the Navarrese People, the Canarian Coalition and Vox confirmed to King Felipe VI that They will turn their backs on Pedro Sánchez.
“We are willing to fight in the courts, to fight in the institutions, and to fight in the streets. We are going to do it with all the consequences,” said Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right force Vox.
At the weekend, Pedro Sánchez was confident: “We are going to put all our efforts into a real investiture.”him,” he said.
“We have all the strength in the world to lead a progressive government to continue moving forward,” he assured.
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