Spain increasingly looks set for a razor-thin coalition of the Left and regional separatists. Catalan nationalists have lent their support to socialist PM Pedro Sánchez and his PSOE party, as the Spanish Parliament reconvened Thursday, August 17th, three weeks after indecisive elections.
Support from the Catalan separatist parties, Junts, and the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), was sufficient to secure the investiture of PSOE MP Francina Armengol as speaker of Parliament, with 178 out of 350 votes, while the Spanish Congress of Deputies assembled for the first time after July’s election also on August 17th.
The election of Armengol bodes well for Sánchez. It is now possible for him to cobble together a coalition deal with separatists and the communist Sumar party and return to power.
Spain is still coming to terms with the inconclusive results of elections held on July 23rd, which saw conservative and nationalist parties in the form of the Partido Popular (PP) and VOX fall short of the 175 parliamentary seats required to form the next Spanish government.
The electoral calculus of the next Spanish Parliament has led to speculation that Sánchez will collaborate with Catalan and Basque nationalists in what would be a nightmare scenario for the Spanish Right, who fear a breakup of the nation.
Catalan nationalists have made amnesty for exiled Junts leaders and the self-described President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, a mandatory condition for any prospective coalition deal with PSOE, as Puigdemont and other separatist MEPs battle extradition orders against them in Brussels.
Junts have secured greater recognition for the Catalan language and the creation of an investigative committee to examine the harassment of Catalan nationalists by state security services in exchange for the election of Armengol as speaker. But they have insisted that amnesty for its exiled leadership in Brussels is a prerequisite for any coalition deal with PSOE.
While Prime Minister Sánchez has emphasised that amnesty is not on the table in any negotiations with the separatists, this has not stopped the Right from warning the PSOE that it is playing with fire by dealing with separatists.
Thursday’s events in Parliament brought further bad news for the nationalist VOX party, which was blocked at the behest of the PP, from having a member on the influential Congress’s governing Bureau.
This marks the first time that the third largest party in the Spanish Parliament was barred from taking a seat in the Bureau. This setback comes after weeks of disquiet and resignations in VOX, following a lacklustre performance where it lost 19 out of its 52 seats due to what it blamed on poor electoral strategy and deceptive polling.
While today’s proceedings reduce the chances of another snap election, the next few weeks will feature further mediation hosted by King Felipe VI, as both PP and PSOE seek a working majority of 175 MPs to govern. However, there is always the lingering possibility that Sánchez will call fresh elections to capitalise on socialist momentum and disunity on the Spanish Right.
