Former Spanish defense minister María Dolores Cospedal confers with then-President Alberto Núñez Feijóo of Galicia during a People’s Party congress in Seville, April 7, 2018 (PP)
King Felipe VI has asked the leader of Spain’s conservative People’s Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to try to form a government.
He is unlikely to succeed.
Feijóo’s party won the election in July with 136 out of 350 seats, but even with the backing of the far-right Vox (Voice), which has 33 seats, and the one deputy of the Navarrese People’s Union, he would fall five votes short of a majority.
Outgoing prime minister, and Socialist Party leader, Pedro Sánchez stands a better chance of cobbling together a majority — but only just. (more…)
Spanish People’s Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo attends the European People’s Party congress in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, May 30, 2022 (PP)
Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s chances of becoming Spain’s prime minister appear slim.
His conservative People’s Party won the election on Sunday with 136 of the 350 seats in Congress. But a coalition with the far-right Vox (Voice) and center-right Navarrese People’s Union would be stuck at 170 seats, six short of a majority.
The Canarian Coalition, which governs the Spanish islands in the Atlantic with Feijóo’s PP, and the moderate Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) have six seats between them. But both refuse to support a prime minister who also needs Vox.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ chances are only slightly better. He would need the support of almost all remaining parties, including Basque and Catalan separatists, to stay in power.
If neither man can muster a majority, Spain would have to hold a repeat election, probably in December or the new year. (more…)
Prime Ministers António Costa of Portugal, Pedro Sánchez of Spain and Stefan Löfven of Sweden attend a meeting of European socialist party leaders in Brussels, October 15, 2020 (PES)
An election that centered on Spanish identity has handed power to parties from the two regions that most clearly define themselves against it: the Basque Country and Catalonia.
Neither Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’ left-wing bloc of the Socialist Party and Sumar (Unite), nor a combination of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party and the far-right Vox (Voice), will have a majority in the next Congress, which convenes in August. Basque and Catalan nationalists won enough seats on Sunday to decide who becomes the next prime minister.
Sánchez holds the best cards despite placing second. He governed with the support of Basque and Catalan parties before. But they may ask for more this time than he is willing to give.
The odds are against Feijóo. He grew his party from 89 to 136 seats, and claimed victory on Sunday night, but he would need both the anti-regionalist Vox and one of the four regional parties from the Basque Country and Catalonia for a majority. That is an improbable combination. His best hope is that Sánchez will fail too and the country must hold a repeat election next year. (more…)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez speaks at a rally of his Socialist Workers’ Party in Badajoz, May 23 (PSOE)
Spain has done well under Pedro Sánchez. The economy is projected to grow 2 percent this year and next, faster than the EU average. Unemployment is at its lowest since 2008. Inflation is down from 8 to under 3 percent. Spaniards pay almost the lowest energy bills in Europe. Renewables provide 50 percent of Spain’s electricity.
Sánchez, a social democrat who governs with the far left, has protected Spaniards from the worst effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine by temporarily reducing sales tax on food and fuel and by paying the wages of workers who lost their jobs. He has invested 40 percent of Spain’s EU COVID-19 recovery funds into green projects.
He has also made structural reforms, like raising the minimum wage and reducing severance pay. He cut taxes for small businesses and incomes under €300,000, and paid for it by raising taxes on capital gains and incomes over €3 million.
The left-wing coalition government — the first since the Civil War — banned “gay conversion therapy”, legalized euthanasia for the terminally ill and required slaughterhouses to install cameras. (more…)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez speaks with European Council president Charles Michel in Versailles, France, March 10, 2022 (European Council)
When Pedro Sánchez came to power in Spain five years ago, even his allies doubted that his coalition government — the first and most left-wing since the Civil War — could last. Yet with the support of far-left populists, former communists and Basque and Catalan separatists, Sánchez has been able to enact a throng of progressive reforms.
Sánchez has a knack for defying the odds, as I told Pratik Chougule on the Star Spangled Gamblers podcast. He was ousted by his party after losing the 2015 and 2016 elections, but avenged himself in the 2017 primary. He plotted the first successful vote of no-confidence against a sitting prime minister the following year and has managed to stay in power since despite never winning an outright majority.
The social democrat’s luck may finally run out. Polls for the general election next month, which Sánchez brought forward from December after his coalition parties lost the municipal and regional elections in May, point to a victory for the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox (Voice).
At the risk of writing Sánchez’ political obituary too soon, here is a look back at what he has achieved as prime minister. (more…)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez visits UN peacekeepers in Lebanon, December 28, 2022 (La Moncloa)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has unexpectedly called an early general election after his Socialist Workers’ Party was defeated in local elections on Sunday.
General elections weren’t due until December. By bringing them forward to July, Sánchez is taking a gamble — and not for the first time. (more…)
Catalan Socialist Party leader Salvador Illa listens to his Basque counterpart, Eneko Andueza, making a speech, January 16 (Socialistas Vascos)
Catalonia’s Socialists missed an opportunity after the last election to split up the region’s left- and right-wing independence parties. The moderate Republican Left, which supports a Socialist government nationally, had tired of the hardliners in Together for Catalonia (Junts), but local Socialist Party leader Salvador Illa wouldn’t accept anything short of the presidency for himself.
“Why should I invest a person that I defeated at the polls?” he remarked of the Republican party leader, Pere Aragonès.
Illa won 50,000 more votes than the Republicans, but both parties got 33 out of 135 seats. Aragonès claimed the presidency too, but he had two paths to a majority, not one. Illa’s intransigence drove the Republicans into the arms of Junts.
But the coalition proved short-lived and Illa has recently set his ego aside. (more…)
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez chairs a meeting of Socialist Workers’ Party lawmakers in Madrid, June 1 (PSOE/Eva Ercolanese)
Spain’s ruling left-wing parties have abolished the crimes for which Catalonia’s independence leaders were imprisoned — and the right has gone berserk. Conservative deputies called the penal reforms an “assault on democracy”. The far right called Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a “traitor”. (They do so frequently.)
When the reforms came to a vote in Congress, members of the conservative People’s Party (PP) sat on their hands. The center-right Citizens and far-right Vox (Voice) walked out in protest. So much for their commitment to democracy.
Indeed, it was the PP’s disinterest in Catalan democracy that culminated in the imprisonment of half the Catalan government and the suspension of Catalan home rule. Sánchez is doing little more than clean up the mess they made. (more…)
Prime Ministers António Costa of Portugal, Pedro Sánchez of Spain and Stefan Löfven of Sweden attend a meeting of European socialist party leaders in Brussels, October 15, 2020 (PES)
At what point will Catalonia’s Republican Left decide enough is enough?
The separatists have kept Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in power for two-and-a-half years, but I argue in EUobserver they have little to show for it.
Sánchez most recently did a deal behind Catalans’ backs with conservatives to reduce subsidies for independent film and television productions, including those made in Catalan. The subsidies were the only concession Republicans had wrangled out of Sánchez’ Socialist Party in budget talks last year.
The about-face could be the final straw. “You have destroyed the agreement you had with us, which cost us a lot, which we defended to the end,” Republican Joan Margall told Socialist deputies in Congress. (more…)
Capitol Cinema in Madrid, Spain, October 5, 2018 (Unsplash/Jose Cruz)
Spain’s ruling left-wing parties have agreed to reverse the labor market liberalizations of the previous, conservative government, which made it easier for firms to hire and fire workers.
The decision is hard to justify even by the standards set by proponents of repeal. The reforms did not create more precarious jobs, they did not cause higher structural unemployment, and they barely made a dent in wages. (more…)
Spanish health minister Salvador Illa listens to a debate in Congress in Madrid, October 28, 2020 (PSOE/Eva Ercolanese)
With two weeks left before snap elections would automatically be called, Catalonia’s leading separatist party, the Republican Left, still doesn’t have support to form either a majority or a minority regional government.
The Republicans floated the possibility of a minority government after weeks of negotiations with the second independence party, Together for Catalonia (Junts), led nowhere. But even a minority government would need the backing of Junts to win more votes than the unionists, who have 53 out of 135 seats in the Catalan parliament.
The dispute centers on Junts‘ desire to push forward with Catalan independence from Spain whereas the Republicans want to give talks with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez about more autonomy a chance. (Talks which have barely begun.) Junts is driving the negotiations to a head, because it thinks the Republicans have no alternative.
So if you’re a clever opposition party, you give them an alternative. (more…)
Dutch, Italian and Spanish socialist party leaders Frans Timmermans, Nicola Zingaretti and Pedro Sánchez meet in Brussels, March 21, 2019 (PES)
It is time for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to accept that little more will come of his overtures to Spain’s conservative opposition.
Sánchez, a social democrat who rules in coalition with the far-left Podemos (We Can), came to power with the support of Basque, Catalan and other regional parties.
But since the outbreak of coronavirus disease, he has tried to build broader support for his recovery programs.
I argued in July that Sánchez was walking a fine line. Make too many compromises with the right and Podemos and the Catalan Republican Left could feel betrayed.
Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party leader Pedro Sánchez answers questions from reporters in Madrid, January 22, 2016 (PSOE)
With support from the pro-independence Catalan left weakening, Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez is reaching out to the center-right.
The liberal-nationalist Citizens are shifting back to the center under their new leader, Inés Arrimadas, after a disastrous lurch to the right in the last election. They have largely supported Sánchez’ emergency measures to cope with the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed at least 28,000 Spaniards. The party has pledged to vote for three out of four proposed recovery programs, except the one for social policy.
Even the conservative People’s Party, which only a few months ago called Sánchez a “traitor” for doing a deal with Basque and Catalan separatists and then accused him of lying about the true death toll of the pandemic, has suggested it could support some of the policies, which include tax hikes and loans to small businesses.
With tourism, normally one-sixth of the economy, drying up, unemployment is projected to reach 19 percent. (It would be worse without the furloughing system ERTE.) The central bank expects the economy will contract between 9 and 15 percent this year before growing 7-9 percent in 2021. (more…)
Spanish party leaders Pablo Iglesias and Pedro Sánchez speak in Madrid, February 5, 2016 (PSOE)
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez is closing in on a deal with Catalan separatists to remain in power.
The caretaker prime minister has the support of the far left to form a new government, but he also needs the backing of regional parties, who hold the balance of power in Congress.
Sánchez’ Socialist Party does not have a majority of its own. (more…)
Spanish, Austrian and Portuguese social democratic party leaders Pedro Sánchez, Christian Kern and António Costa attend a meeting in Lisbon, December 2, 2017 (PES)
21 seats short of a majority in Congress, Spain’s Pedro Sánchez still need either the support or acquiescence of smaller parties to serve a second term as prime minister.
