2023-08-17 05:01:00
The President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, and his right-wing rival and leader of the Popular Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, ratified this Wednesday their intentions to be elected as the country’s top leaders as of Thursday, when the new Parliament takes office. and the process to form a government begins.
Sánchez met with the Socialist deputies and senators who won seats in the elections and demanded that Núñez Feijóo stop demanding the investiture because he lacks the necessary support in Parliament, despite the fact that he does not have it yet either. “The PP must be capable of understanding and respecting our parliamentary system, accepting something as basic and as legitimate as that in Spain whoever gets the most support governs” in Parliament, he indicated.
The PSOE leader aspires to be invested with the support of regional pro-independence parties. Among them is Juntos por Catalunya (JxC), of the former president of the regional government of Catalonia Carles Puigdemont, who fled from the Spanish Justice after the unilateral declaration of independence in 2017. To guarantee this support, Sánchez promised to promote the use of Catalan, Basque and Galician in the institutions of the European Union (EU), a demand of the nationalists. “Spain speaks Spanish, but it also speaks Catalan, Basque, and Galician,” said the president of the country that holds the temporary presidency of the regional bloc. “We are going to promote its use in the community institutions as a commitment that I am going to deploy throughout the Spanish presidency of the European Union”, he added.
In another nod to the Catalan nationalists, Sánchez proposed as a candidate to preside over the Congress the Catalan-speaking Francina Armengol, former regional president of the Balearic Islands region, culturally very close to Catalonia.
Feijóo’s insistence
In Madrid, Feijóo also brought together the new PP bench in Parliament and reiterated that he will seek to be sworn in because he considers that the majority of Spaniards do not deserve to be governed by independentistas and separatists, while insisting that it was what was appropriate because his party was the most voted. “That the majority of the Chambers are under the pro-independence and separatist command only has one responsibility, that of the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez. The majority of Spaniards do not deserve this. Spain does not deserve a Prime Minister who wants to be so again even after lose the elections,” he declared.
The opposition leader proposed the current spokesperson for his party, Cuca Gamarra, to preside over the Congress of Deputies. In addition, he insisted that her formation is going to appear at the investiture, but stressed that she needs to continue with the negotiations. “We have accepted that we have won, but we do not have an absolute majority, and we have understood that we must negotiate with other forces,” he specified. “So that the general interests of Spain are above the interests of the parties, so that the Constitution continues to be the basic norm of territorial cohesion and solidarity, and so that the state of the autonomies remains shielded,” he added.
The road to the new government
The PP was the most voted in the elections of July 23, but did not reach an absolute majority of 176 of the 350 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament, not even with the seats of its allies from the party of far right Vox. Sánchez’s PSOE and his allies from the left-wing Sumar coalition do not have that many seats either, but they have an arithmetic chance of reaching the inauguration allied with the pro-independence forces.
The new Congress, the fifteenth number since the return to democracy after the Franco dictatorship in 1975, will be installed when its authorities are elected, at the proposals of the leaders of the parties with parliamentary representation. Once established, King Felipe VI, the Spanish head of state, will nominate a candidate for the presidency or head of government, who will be proposed by the new president of the Chamber of Deputies.
To be elected president of the Government, the nominee must obtain an absolute majority in a first vote in the Chamber of Deputies or a simple majority in a second vote 48 hours later. If no one obtains the necessary support, Spain will have to repeat the elections within the following six months.
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