Pedro Sanchez was re-elected as prime minister by lawmakers in the Spanish parliament on Thursday, ending nearly four months of political deadlock since the inconclusive general election on July 23.
The leader of the Socialist Party managed to form a government on the second day of an investiture debate in the first of two conceivable votes, thanks to the majority he needed in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies. On Saturday, the second elections would have been held, in which an undeniable majority was needed (more yes than no).
Sanchez has been prime minister since June 2018, after winning a no-confidence vote against Mariano Rajoy, then leader of the conservative Popular Party. After the inconclusive 2019 general election, he formed a minority government in 2020 in coalition with the left. wing of the Unidas Podemos party, securing small teams for their nomination and the passage of legislation.
In addition to the votes of his own Socialist Party (PSOE), he also supported in Thursday’s vote the new left-wing alliance Sumar, which will be his coalition partner, Esquerra Republicana Catalana (ERC), Together for Catalonia, EH. Bildu, the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), the Galician Nationalist Bloc (BNG) and the Canary Islands Coalition.
In total, it obtained 179 votes in favor from the 350 legislators, with 171 votes against and 0 abstentions.
However, Sanchez’s path back to power has been fraught with controversy. To protect the separatist parties ERC and Together for Catalonia, he had to reach agreements that included cancelling the northeastern region’s debt, a roadmap for negotiations on the region’s long-term. and, more controversially, an amnesty for anyone involved in the Catalan independence campaign over the past decade.
The most prominent beneficiaries of the amnesty will be the Minister of Catalonia in 2017, Carles Puigdemont, of Together for Catalonia, and his then vice-president, Oriol Junqueras, of ERC.
Puigdemont fled Spain after the events of October 2017, which he considered to be the architect. An illegal referendum on secession from Spain was held in the region that month, and then the regional government approved a unilateral declaration of independence.
Since then, Puigdemont has lived in self-imposed exile in Brussels to be arrested and tried, but under the terms of the amnesty he will be able to return to Spain.
Junqueras, for his part, was arrested, tried and imprisoned for his role in the independence campaign. He has since been pardoned by the government headed by Pedro Sanchez and released, but has recently been banned from holding public office. The amnesty would remove this ban.
Also benefiting will be school principals who allowed their centres to be used as polling stations and police officers accused of violent behaviour towards the public in the illegal referendum, among other minor figures.
Sanchez began his inauguration speech to Congress at noon on Wednesday, expressing respect for the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who took to the streets on Sunday to protest his amnesty plan, in demonstrations called by the PP.
But he warned about the risks of the right, giving examples such as the United States and Argentina, linking them to the rhetoric, movements and recent alliances between the PP and the right-wing Vox in Spain. The two parties reached an agreement on a series of government agreements following this year’s local and regional elections.
Despite cries from PP deputies calling for “Amnesty!”, Sanchez dealt with the situation until about 90 minutes into his speech, which lasted about an hour and 40 minutes.
He also made political announcements, promising free public transportation for young people and the unemployed, an extension of sales tax cuts on certain foods to ease the cost-of-living crisis, and more for intellectually fit patients.
When, despite everything, he obtained amnesty, he claimed that the plan was “perfectly legal and in accordance with the Constitution” and criticized the PP for its management of the 2017 independence campaign, which the insurrection police sent by force through the government. violently seeking to save him the illegal referendum on secession from Spain.
He also argued that right-wing parties such as Vox and the PP were calling on Spaniards to protest not because of the amnesty, but because they were not satisfied with the effects of the July 23 elections. Feijoo has been relentlessly calling for a new vote. in recent weeks.
Feijoo, for his part, went on the attack from the first moment of his speech.
“You didn’t get support from anyone,” he said. “You bought it. “
He also accused the caretaker Prime Minister of having “no legal or moral limits” and having “pathological ambitions”.
He also attacked Sanchez for ruling out an amnesty deal with separatist parties before the election, only to change his mind.
However, he acknowledged that the government now formed by Sanchez is actually legitimate, contrary to what the far-right Vox party claims.
The tense debate between the two party leaders was, at least, interrupted by a few moments of levity.
Sanchez couldn’t help but laugh as he mocked Feijoo’s earlier claim that he was “not prime minister because he didn’t need to be,” given that the PP leader had tried unsuccessfully to form a government in his own investiture vote. September, winning only his own group’s party, Vox, and two smaller parties.
He later mocked Feijoo for confusing a quote he had quoted from the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, with a variation of the same quote included in a song by singer-songwriter Ismael Serrano.
Insults were hurled at PSOE deputies as they arrived at Congress on Wednesday, but protesters gathered in gigantic numbers, as they have in recent weeks, in front of the party’s headquarters on Madrid’s Calle Ferraz.
There were even fewer protesters near the parliament building on Thursday morning, when the second day of debate began, with some 1,600 police officers patrolling the area.
On Thursday morning, however, the PSOE deputies had eggs thrown at them as they left the police perimeter around Congress to have breakfast at a nearby bar.
MPs from the far-right Vox party left the hallway on Wednesday night after a speech by their leader, Santiago Abascal, and headed to the Paseo del Prado, past the police barrier and waving to protesters who had gathered there.
They did not return on Thursday morning to listen to the rest of the debate, refusing to pay attention to the speeches of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and EH Bildu, the latter with former links to the extinct terrorist group. ETA.
During his speech Wednesday, Abascal compared Sanchez to Nero and even Hitler, calling them all “the greatest criminals in history. “He also claimed that the amnesty law amounts to a coup d’état, earning him a rebuke from House Speaker Francina Armengol, who asked him to retract his statements or erase them from parliamentary archives.
Abascal, however, refused to do so and took advantage of the president’s censorship to argue that she was expressing her point and that parliamentarians no longer enjoyed “freedom of expression” in the small space of parliament.
An unforeseen protagonist in Wednesday’s debate was the president of the Madrid government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, of the Popular Party.
She was in the spectators’ gallery at yesterday’s congressional debate and was filmed calling Pedro Sanchez a “son of a bitch” when he discussed corruption allegations against his brother for commissions earned from the sale of masks in the debate. la coronavirus pandemic.
Instead of denying the allegations, representatives of the prime minister told the Spanish newspaper El Pais that instead of saying “son of a bitch,” she had said “I like angels fruit. “
They later demonstrated that he had indeed insulted Sánchez and added that it was “the least he deserved. “
Now that Sánchez has been re-elected Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House will communicate the news to King Felipe VI, after which the leader of the Socialist Party will be officially appointed Prime Minister.
The appointment will then be published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) and the President of the Government will take the oath in the presence of the King.
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