The socialist Pedro Sanchez loses the first vote on his investiture

USPA NEWS - The socialist candidate and president of the Spanish Government in office, Pedro Sanchez, failed on Tuesday, July 23, his election as Prime Minister, after losing the first vote of the investiture debate that began the day before in the Congress of Deputies in Madrid. In favor of his appointment 124 deputies voted, while 170 voted against and 52 abstained. Four other deputies - who are in custody for secessionist attempts in Catalonia - were absent from the hemicycle.

In favor of the investiture of Pedro Sanchez, the 123 Socialist deputies and the Cantabria Regionalist Party MP voted. They voted against the conservative Popular Party, the centrist Ciudadanos (Citizens), the extreme right represented in Vox, the Catalan independence and the Republican left of Catalonia (ERC its Spanish acronym), the regionalist party Navarra Suma, the deputy of the Canary Coalition and the far-left MP, Irene Montero, who voted telematically and was contrary to the position of his party, Podemos. In total, 170 votes against. Podemos, the Basque nationalists, the Valencian nationalists and the Basque independence party EH Bildu abstained.

After this failure, the socialist candidate will return to vote on Thursday, starting at 1:30 p.m. On that occasion it will be enough to obtain a simple majority - more votes in favor than against - to be elected. The abstention of Podemos (We Can) opens the door to an agreement that allows the election of Pedro Sanchez as Prime Minister of a left-wing coalition government. During the preceding weeks, the Socialist Party and Podemos have been negotiating the entry of extreme left formation in the socialist government. But the negotiation has not been easy: the Socialists vetoed the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, and refused to give up the important ministries: Home Affairs, Finance and Defense, among others; and from Podemos they warned that they are not willing to accept vase ministries or be an ornament of the socialist government.

The negotiations broke down a few minutes after the Investiture Debate began. On Tuesday, the acting vice president of the Government, Carmen Calvo, revealed that the Socialists offer Podemos a vice presidency for Irene Montero, the deputy who voted against the election of Pedro Sanchez because she cast her telematic vote when her party planned to oppose to the election of the socialist. Something that the leader of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, highlighted during the debate by warning Pedro Sanchez that "without us, you will never be president."

Precisely, the socialist candidate was criticized by all opposition parties, without distinction of ideas, for having delivered a speech full of vagueness, without concrete proposals and without addressing the great problems that Spain has: the situation in Catalonia or the economic one. Sanchez asked Podemos to support him and the Popular Party and Citizens, to abstain. For the Spanish press, this double game makes the socialist candidate an unreliable person. For the newspaper El Mundo, the new policy is "a full-fledged scam." The newspaper considers Pedro Sanchez “guilty of vanity. He went up to the granstad [“¦] that this was a pedestal, that he was owed pity and, in passing, votes in favor because he is worth it. He wanted to play on all the tracks, the one on the right and the one on the left, and on both he stumbled,“ concludes.

The institutional blockade that Spain lives can end on Thursday if Podemos supports the socialist candidate. But the threat of new elections continues to fly over the Congress of Deputies. To receive that support, Pedro Sanchez must raise his bet and give in to Podemos much more than until now. Sanchez does not want to lose the political control of his government or include in the Cabinet ministers who torpedo the great decisions of the Council of Ministers or who stand against the unity of Spain, the Constitution or the Monarchy.