Spain, the fourth European economy, seems to be heading towards a political blockade after this Sunday, Challenging all the polls that predicted his debacle, Pedro Sánchez managed to limit the advance of the right-wing opposition.
The Popular Party (PP, conservatives), led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, won 136 seats out of a total of 350 in the Congress of Deputies, while the right-wing Vox party, its only potential ally, got 33.
Therefore, they add up to 169 seats, far from the absolute majority of 176 that allows the formation of a government.
On the other side, Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) won 122 seats and Sumar, his left-wing ally, 31.
And although both add up to 153, less than the right and Vox, everything seems to indicate that they have a better chance of staying in power than getting the votes of Basque and Catalan regional parties, who usually support them in Congress.
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What’s next? How the next president will be chosen
In Spain, the formation of the Government depends on the agreements of the parties, therefore, despite having won the elections, the PP cannot govern.
It is a strong negotiation process in which the parties negotiate ministries and positions to have the necessary votes to be elected as president of the Spanish government.
Thus, once the general elections have been held, It is up to King Felipe VI to initiate a round of consultations with the parties to form a government.
The celebration of the interviews with the representatives of the parties will take place after the Congress and the Senate are constituted on August 17although they do not have an appraised date.
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And it is that according to the Spanish Constitution, it is up to Felipe VI to propose a candidate to submit to the investiture session once the meetings with the different formations have been completed.
The usual thing is that the Spanish monarch summons the parties about two weeks after the new Congress starts with the election of its president and the inauguration of the deputies, which would place the round at the end of August or beginning of September.
But the scenario left by the elections does not clarify who Felipe VI could propose to form a government. Article 99.1 of the Spanish Constitution limits itself to stating that the king, “after consultation with the representatives designated by the political groups with parliamentary representation, and through the president of Congress, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the Government”.
In January 2016, for example, an unprecedented situation arose when the then Prime Minister and leader of the PP Mariano Rajoy, who had won 123 seats, declined Felipe VI’s proposal to try to form a government, forcing another round of interviews.
The name proposed by the head of the Spanish State will be submitted to the investiture session, which will prosper if it achieves an absolute majority.
If it does not reach it, there will be a new vote 48 hours later, in which only a simple majority will be required (more votes for yes than for no).
If the candidate fails, the king must convene a new round of consultations and a period of two months is opened for another candidate to attempt the investiture, which if he fails, would lead the country to new general elections.
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Thus, to the president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, and his conservative rival, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, It is now up to them to try to launch tough negotiations with the parties to try to avoid a repetition of the elections.
According to Federico Santi, an expert at Eurasia Group, the result of this Sunday’s elections “will mark the beginning of a period of political uncertainty that will last for months”, an opinion with which the Spanish newspapers agree, which predicted, as in the case of El País, that a new government is now “up in the air”.
“The scenario is very complicated, without a doubt, but we have to push forward” and negotiate, “because if not, the scenario we can go to is also very worrying, be it the blockade or a repetition of the elections,” a PP spokesman, Borja Sémper, said on Onda Cero radio on Monday morning.
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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 the investiture vote in Parliament.
What can happen then after the election? These are the scenarios that are opening up in Spain after Sunday’s election.
1. A right-wing government
Predicted as the winner by all polls, the conservative Popular Party (PP) won the elections but well below their expectations.
With 136 seats, he falls far short of an absolute majority of 176 seats in the Congress of Deputies, even with the support of the 33 representatives of the right-wing Vox party, his only potential ally.
As the winner of the elections, the PP candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, claimed the right to govern in a minority and hastened to ask Sánchez’s Socialist Party “and the rest of the political forces, not to block (the formation of a) PP government”.
“There is no president of the Government of Spain who has governed after losing the elections,” Feijóo launched, in a message to Sánchez.
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“The problem for the PP is that it needs the support of Vox and other parties to govern. However, regionalist parties such as the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) are going to find it very difficult to support a government that includes Vox,” which generally attacks them and labels them enemies of Spain, said Antonio Barroso, an analyst at the consultancy Teneo.
The PP could also manage to form a government if the Socialists abstain in an investiture voteBut they’ve already said they won’t.
The problem for the PP is that it needs the support of Vox and other parties to govern
The PP, in fact, believes that the only way out to avoid a political blockade that would lead to an electoral repetition is to explore “alternative formulas” with the Socialist Party (PSOE), so that the conservative Alberto Núñez Feijóo presides over a new government alone with specific pacts.
In a radio interview collected by Efe, the PP campaign spokesman, Borja Sémper, insisted on Monday that Núñez Feijóo will take the initiative to attempt his investiture, because they understand that the results of the elections lead to a blockade of the legislature or to electoral repetition.
“I know that it is very difficult to raise it today (a government led by Feijóo), but I do not think that Spain has another way out,” said Sémper.
After insisting that the “only reasonable alternative” for the country “is to have a vision of the State”, he said that Feijóo will transfer this proposal to Sánchez, as well as his will that Spain does not depend on the governance of the Basque nationalist formation Bildu, of the (Catalan) independentistas and of those who “do not believe in Spanish coexistence”.
In another television interview, the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, warned of the risk of an absolute blockade for the country that the pacts between Sánchez and the separatists would entail, and recalled that the price for this support would be progress in the independence of the Basque Country and Catalonia.
2. PSOE must get the support of regional parties
Second party in number of deputies, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) of Pedro Sánchez, which called these early elections after the debacle of its formation in the local elections in May, managed to resist and win 122 seats and can count on the 31 of Sumar, his radical left-wing ally.
But to have any chance of staying in powerthe left will also need to secure the support of small regionalist parties, as it has done in recent years.
With 153 deputies, the alliance of PSOE and Sumar will need the support of various regional formations, such as the Catalans of ERC (7 seats) or the Basques of the PNV (5) or Bildu (6), the latter considered the political heir of the extinct separatist band ETA.
But the key is that the PSOE and Sumar will also have to ensure the abstention of JxCat (7 seats), the party of Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont, who is in Belgium to evade Spanish justice for his role in the failed Catalan secession in 2017.
However, his secretary general, Jordi Turull, on Monday removed the prospect of a possible endorsement from his party for the socialist leader to be invested again as president of the Spanish Government: “I don’t see the investiture anywhere right now.”
At this moment, “the abstention” of JxCat in an eventual investiture by Sánchez “is not a scenario”, since it has not opened the door so far to either an amnesty or a self-determination referendum.
If Sánchez manages to overcome this obstacle, he could gather a total of 172 deputies, more than the leader of the PP, so if JxCat abstains, it could achieve the investiture in the second vote in Congress, where a simple majority is required (only more votes for yes than for no).
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3. A possible early election
According to analysts, early elections is the most likely hypothesis. If neither the left nor the right bloc manage to form a government, Elections will be called, a priori before the end of the year.
The new Parliament will be constituted on August 17. The parties can then negotiate, without time limit, to find a majority.
However, from the moment an investiture vote fails, King Felipe VI has to dissolve Parliament two months later and call new elections.
A blockade situation that Spain knows well, because between 2015 and 2019 the country experienced four general elections.
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However, the acting President of the Spanish Government and leader of the Socialist Party (PSOE), Pedro Sánchez, does not foresee a repeat election after the general elections this Sunday, since “democracy will find the formula for governability”.
Sources from the Socialist Executive, meeting this Monday to analyze the results of the elections, indicated that this is Sánchez’s intention.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With AFP and EFE
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