The leader of the right Alberto Núñez Feijóodid not obtain sufficient support from Parliament, which rejected his candidacy this Wednesday, as planned. to be sworn in as president of the government of Spain in the first vote.
This announced failure now activates a two-month countdown for another candidate triesbefore new legislative elections are called.
It will be time for the outgoing president of the government, the socialist Pedro Sanchezwho in recent years has demonstrated his great ability to survive politicallytry to gain the confidence of Parliament to be reinstated as head of the executive.
Winner of the legislative elections of July 23which did not, however, allow an absolute majority to be formed, Feijóo This Wednesday he obtained 178 votes against and 172 in favor, coming from the deputies of his Popular Party (PP)of the far-right formation Vox and two small parties.
But to be elected in this first vote he would have needed to have the support of the absolute majority of the Congress of Deputies, 176 votes out of 350.
Last chance on Friday
The leader of the PP, who had received the task of king Philip VI to try to form a government, it will undergo a second vote on Friday, where a simple majority would be sufficient. Except for a major surprise, he won’t get it either.
Aware of certain defeat, Feijóo62, spent much of this inauguration session that began Tuesday attacking Sanchez and to the Catalan independentists, on whom the socialist depends if he wants to be elected president again.
Claiming to defend the “general interest” and “equality” of SpaniardsFeijóo He showed himself from the podium this Wednesday as the alternative to Sánchez, who, according to him, leads a “model of blackmail and concessions to those who do not believe in our country.”
“Mister Sanchezwhether he is going to be president or not will depend on what Mr. Puigdemont wants or not,” he had launched Feijóo on Tuesday to his socialist rival, sitting in the chamber, in reference to the leader of the secessionist attempt in Catalonia in 2017.
With the key to governability in a very fragmented Parliament, the former regional president Carles Puigdemont and the seven deputies of their party demand that an amnesty be approved for Catalan separatists with pending cases with the Spanish justice system, in exchange for their support.
One of them is his own Puigdemont, who fled to Belgium at the end of October 2017 to evade Spanish justice. “What the independence movement proposes is a direct attack on the essential democratic values of our country,” he denounced. Feijóo.
In addition to the frontal opposition of the right, which mobilized tens of thousands of people on Sunday in Madrid In rejection of a possible amnesty, the idea arouses growing discomfort in a part of the Socialist Party, which was also against this measure in the past.
The negotiations promise to be complex for Sanchezwho must find a formula that satisfies the separatists without provoking a rebellion in his party.
Optimistic about his return to power, the president of the government, who already pardoned in 2021 the independence supporters sentenced to prison for the failed secession of 2017, has not yet spoken publicly about a possible amnesty, not even this week in Parliament, where gave his turn to speak to another socialist deputy to respond to Feijóo.
He did indicate, however, that it would be “coherent with the policy of normalization and stabilization of the political situation in Catalonia” that he has followed since coming to power in 2018.
Source: Ambito
