Spain’s chance for a turn to the right is officially over, for now.
On Friday afternoon, center-right leader of the Partido Popular Alberto Nuñez Feijóo lost in the second vote in parliament for his potential government.
The outcome was expected, as underperformance by the Right in Spain’s July elections has left the country at the mercy of the fickle Catalan and Basque nationalist and independentist parties, whose votes can be bought for the right concessions. Feijóo and his political bloc are unwilling to grant their demands, namely amnesty for the leaders of the illegal 2017 referendum on Catalan secession and a new referendum.
Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his socialist block are willing to grant such concessions and so will likely gain the government. But even Sánchez has been cagey to the public on exactly what he has promised to the Catalans and Basques. At the same time, separatists have made it clear they are also willing to send the country to repeat elections if their demands are not met. On Thursday, separatists raised the price for their votes by presenting in the Catalan regional parliament a resolution stating that their support for Sánchez hinged on a commitment to “work to make possible the conditions for holding the referendum.”
As the Spanish constitution stands, it provides no legal provision for a referendum on the secession of a part of the country—and a significant part of the socialist PSOE voter base would never support a Catalan referendum, anyway. The PSOE knows this and quickly issued assuring statements that they were not planning for a Catalan referendum.
But either way, the PSOE stands to lose something in the short or long term—either the investiture or the voters.
Spain’s Right is counting on this and crossing its fingers for a repeat election.
Though not able to form a government, Feijóo’s two days of speeches during the long investiture debate, have redounded to the party’s favor.
In a poll about the debate taken for the major Spanish newspaper El Mundo, Feijóo was the most well-ranked leader among the politicians who had stood at the speaker’s podium. Additionally, when asked if they found his political program clear and complete, even 27.5% of socialist voters gave Feijóo the top ranking of “very much.” Again, when asked “And to what extent has Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s intervention been convincing to support his investiture?”, nearly a fifth of socialist voters responded that they would have voted for him for prime minister had they been in Congress.
The poll also asked about Sánchez’s decision to delegate his party’s interventions in the investiture debate to a little-know regional politician. While dramatic in the moment, a clear majority—56.5%—of socialist voters disapproved of the Sánchez decision, calling it “very bad” or “bad”, compared to 43.5% that they considered it “good” or “very good.”
Sánchez will propose his governmental plan to Spain’s parliament in mid-October, though an exact date has not been set yet.
The next few weeks of Spanish politics will be critical.
