There are plenty of points of contention in Parliament in Madrid. But the right-wing populist party Vox has failed for the second time with a no-confidence motion against the prime minister.
The Spanish right-wing populists have failed in their attempt to overthrow the left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. The Vox party’s vote of no confidence was defeated by a clear majority of 201 votes to 53 with 91 abstentions in the lower house of parliament in Madrid on Wednesday. With one exception, only Vox MPs voted to remove Sánchez.
It is Vox’s second no-confidence motion against Sánchez in the current legislative period. The first failed in October 2020. When announcing the renewed initiative, Vox President Santiago Abascal said that one should not stand idly by while Sánchez destroyed the state. Vox accuses the coalition government of the socialist PSOE and the left-wing alliance Unidas Podemos of “promoting illegal immigration” and collaborating with separatist parties in the regions of Catalonia and the Basque Country.
Look at the upcoming elections
Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) had announced that it would abstain before the vote. The PP always sharply criticizes Sánchez’s work. However, she rejected the Vox application on the grounds that it would give the left-wing government an unnecessary boost in the “super election year” of 2023. In Spain, local and regional elections are due on May 28, as well as the general election at the end of the year.
Vox had surprisingly fielded a former Communist Party politician, Ramón Tamames, as a rival candidate. The 89-year-old economist has not been politically active since 1989 and is unknown to most younger Spaniards.
It was only the sixth no-confidence vote in Spain since the end of the Franco dictatorship in 1975. Only one was successful: In June 2018, Sánchez was able to overthrow the conservative Mariano Rajoy from the PP and take over the office of prime minister.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
