Countdown: the king of Spain refused to give a mandate to form a government to the socialist leader

The King of Spain, Philip VI, completed a series of consultations with leaders of parliamentary factions and refused to give a new mandate to form a government to the Secretary General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSI), and. about. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

According to the press service of the Royal Court, Philip VI concluded that "not a single candidate will receive the necessary support from deputies of the lower house of parliament for approval as head of government."

In this regard, he informed the Speaker of the Congress of Deputies that he “does not nominate a candidate for the post” of the Prime Minister.

We add that earlier the leader of the ISRP failed to form a government during the voting in parliament on July 23 and 25 on his candidacy for the post of prime minister.

Thus, if the prime minister cannot be appointed before September 23, according to the Constitution of Spain, both houses of parliament will be dissolved. The date of the early general election is already known - November 10th.

The need for a coalition

Recall that the previous vote was held on April 28, 2019. According to its results, the ruling center-left ISRP won, gaining 123 seats (out of 350) in the lower house of parliament. They were followed by the center-right People’s Party (NP) with 66 seats and Citizens with 57. The left Podemos finished fourth, securing the opportunity to delegate 42 deputies to parliament, and the fifth - the far right VOX (24 seats). The remaining 38 mandates were distributed among smaller, including regional, political forces.

Thus, the winning socialists did not get enough seats for the sole formation of the government and were forced to seek the support of other parties. However, it was not possible to achieve this.

• And about. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and Podemos Party Leader Pablo Iglesias
• Reuters
• © Juan Medina

“Spain simply cannot fit into the new multi-party system. Podemos and Citizens are quite competitive compared to the other two traditional parties. Plus, these little fragments of different separatist trends - Basques and Catalans. And in the end, the majority does not form. Spain does not know what to do, a multi-party system was too tough for her. It is in the zone of political turbulence, the alliance does not occur. There is no particular way out of the situation, ”said Alexander Chichin, Dean of the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration under the President of the Russian Federation.

The head of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, once again announced on September 17 that his associates were ready to support the candidacy of Pedro Sanchez for prime minister in exchange for an agreement on the formation of a coalition government.

At the same time, the willingness to support such a coalition (which still does not have enough parliamentary seats for independent cabinet formation - 165 with the necessary 176) has already been expressed by representatives of the regional political forces “Left Republicans of Catalonia” (14 mandates) and the Basque Nationalist Party (6 mandates). In this scenario, they are ready not to cast their votes against Sanchez, but to abstain.

Pavel Salin, director of the Center for Political Studies of the Financial University, explained in an interview with RT that the Spaniards are now trying to form the first coalition government in history, so it is not surprising that there are so many difficulties.

“The leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party is in a rather difficult situation. Apparently, the disagreements between his party and the Podemos party are very substantial. Previously, they seemed to come to the conclusion that they couldn’t come to an agreement and new parliamentary elections are inevitable, ”the expert noted.

At the same time, Sanchez is not satisfied, first of all, with the demand of Pablo Iglesias for representatives of his party to receive ministerial portfolios in proportion to the representation of the political force in parliament. Then Sanchez will become the prime minister, but will not have all the power, Salin emphasizes. In this regard, the leader of the ISRP insists on creating an exclusively parliamentary coalition - without including Podemos members in the government.

The last attempt by Pablo Iglesias to come to an agreement with Pedro Sanchez was made on September 12. Then he personally called the candidate for the post of prime minister in order to “unblock the situation” and “avoid an absurd repeat of the election,” as the representative of Podemos Pablo Ecenike explained in his microblog Twitter.

At the same time, the left offered the PSOF to agree on a coalition government and adopt a budget. And if later, Sanchez decides that the members of Podemos should leave the government, the party will agree to this. But Sanchez rejected such a proposal.

“It seems to him that it is clear (and perhaps always has been) that he will drag us to the elections in order to see if he gets ten more seats,” commented Sanchez's decision to Ecenike.

As Pavel Salin notes, Sanchez has a great temptation to continue to refuse to accept Iglesias terms and wait for early elections.

“According to ratings and forecasts, in the case of early elections, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party promises victory. Then the party will be able to form a government on its own and avoid all the difficulties and uncertainties associated with the coalition, ”said the director of the Center for Political Studies of the Financial University.

Minority government

At the same time, Pedro Sanchez has an alternative option - to agree with the right parties. At the same time, the leader of Podemos Pablo Iglesias does not exclude that in this case he will not create obstacles for Sanchez and will not oppose the candidacy of the head of the ISRP, but will abstain.

“We will abstain as we did during the previous two votes on the allegation, it was a way to reach out to Sanchez,” Iglesias stated in an interview with La Sexta on September 13.

At the same time, Albert Rivera, the head of the center-right Citizens party, said that his political association and NP are ready to abstain during the second vote and allow the PSI to form a minority government. However, in return, he demanded that Sanchez fulfill three conditions: termination of socialist cooperation with regional nationalist parties, discussion of the possibility of applying the 155th article of the Spanish constitution in relation to Catalonia (involves the dissolution of the local government and the transition of the region under the control of the central authorities) and the rejection of the idea of ​​raising taxes.

However, the leader of the ISRP emphasized that these conditions are already being met. Rivera called this Sanchez’s answer “a mockery” and emphasized that if he did not change his position, the Citizens would vote against his candidacy.