Politics
Spanish Parliament is constituted with a socialist president
Continue negotiations to form Government
The new Bureau of the Spanish Lower House
(Source: Pool)
(Source: Pool)
Socialist Patxi Lopez, who was President of the regional Government of the Basque Country, was elected President of the Congress of Deputies in second vote and the votes in favor (130) of the Socialist Party and the centrist party Citizens. The choice of Patxi Lopez was made possible by the abstention of the conservative Popular Party and is the first time that the Lower House of the Spanish Parliament is not chaired by the party winning the elections. The President of the Congress of Deputies is the third authority of the Spanish State, behind the King and the Prime Minister.
The Bureau of the House of Representatives will have four vice presidents, two of them occupied by the Popular Party; one occupied by the Socialist Party, and the fourth, on the far-left party Podemos. In addition, the four secretariats are occupied, one by the Popular Party; two by the centrist Citizens, and the fourth by Podemos. This distribution is the result of intensive negotiations that have taken place over recent weeks and now continue to form new Government.
The Popular Party is seeking support for a second term of Mariano Rajoy and it calls for an agreement with the Socialist Party and Citizens. However, faced with the refusal of the Socialist Party, which, for its part, is seeking the formation of a Left Front with Citizens, Podemos and the communists of the United Left. The problem of the Socialists is that to achieve the majority needed to invest to its general secretary, Pedro Sanchez, as Prime Minister, need the support of the Catalan and Basque nationalists, a conditional acceptance by the Socialists support independence Catalonia.
Conservative majority in the Senate
Meanwhile, in the Senate, the conservative Popular Party has an absolute majority and that allows they to keep the presidency of the Chamber. The 145 senators of the Popular Party were enough to put in office for a second consecutive term, Pio Garcia-Escudero. All other parties represented in the Senate abstained, except Podemos. Finally, the far-left party will have no representative in the Bureau of the Senate.
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