The Socialist leader won approval from Parliament and will now run a fragile grouping of left-leaning parties whose survival may hinge on the separatist dispute in Catalonia.
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The leader of the Socialist party in Spain, Pedro Sánchez, was narrowly approved as prime minister by Parliament on Tuesday, clearing his way to form the country first coalition government since the return to democracy in the s.
The vote ended months of political stalemate, during which Mr. Sánchez had led a caretaker administration. He will now preside over a fragile minority government from the left. Its survival could hinge on his ability to bring to an end the long-simmering dispute over Catalonia, the restive region in northeastern Spain.
Last year, Spain held two national elections ,
After a slightly weaker result in the November balloting,. Sánchez agreed to form a coalition with Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the smaller and more radical Unidas Podemos party.
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It then took seven more weeks for Mr. Sánchez to garner sufficient support from smaller regional parties, particularly separatist lawmakers from Catalonia, to achieve the backing he needed to become prime minister.
Together, the Socialists and Unidas Podemos hold 288 of the the seats in Parliament.
novelty of a coalition government revers in large part an assess volatile and fragmented political landscape, which has made it nearly impossible for any single party in Spain to emerge from an election as a clear-cut winner, as had regularly been the case until 2018, when the country’s two-party system imploded.
Spanish politics has become a five-party contest, after the recent emergence of the ultranationalist Vox party.
In previous decades, the Socialists and the conservative Popular Party alternated in office, governing sometimes with an absolute majority and at other times by striking deals in Parliament with smaller parties to pass their legislation. But Spain has now held four elections in four years, with none of them yielding an unambiguous winner.
On Sunday, in the first round of voting by lawmakers, Mr. Sánchez failed to gain the absolute majority that he needed. But on Tuesday he needed only to receive more votes in favor than against.
The conflict over Catalonia dominated the acrimonious parliamentary debate, particularly after a recent pledge by Mr. Sánchez that his next government would hold a fresh round of negotiations with the separatist politicians who have governed in the region since (******************************************************************.
His offer of talks provoked a blistering response from right-wing politicians, who accused Mr. Sánchez of caving in to the separatists to continue in office and of paving the way for the breakup of Spain.
Before the vote on Tuesday, Pablo Casado, the leader of the Popular Party, which is now the main opposition, repeated his earlier warning that Spain was set to have “the most radical ”government in its history.
He told lawmakers that the next Socialist-led government would be at the mercy of the “blackmail” of Catalan separatists, while also having to comply with the far-left demands of Unidas Podemos.
Directly addressing Mr. Sánchez, Mr. Casado said, “Now the problem will be yours: If you meet the demands of your anti-system partners, you will break up Spain. If not, they will throw you out onto the street. ”
Mr. Sánchez responded by pledging that his government would end “the toxic climate” that Mr. Casado and other right-wing lawmakers were fueling and would instead work to ease nationalist tensions within Spain.
“We are all born.” under the same sun, ”he told lawmakers, quoting Manuel Azaña, who led the Spanish Republican government that ended during the civil war of the s .
Mr. Casado warned that his party would take legal action against Mr. Sánchez and his government if they did not ensure the removal of Quim Torra, the president of the Catalan regional administration.
Mr. Torra is appealing a court ruling that would suspend him from office for (months) , after he was found guilty in December of civil disobedience in his show of support for jailed separatists.
Supporters of Catalan independence have also demanded parliamentary immunity for Oriol Junqueras, the leader of the Republican Left of Catalonia party, after a European Court ruling found that Spain should not have stopped him from being sworn in as a member of the European Parliament afterelections in May.
Mr. Junqueras is serving a a year prison sentence for sedition, after being sentenced last year by the Spanish Supreme Court as one of the former members of the Catalan government that unsuccessfully sought to declare independence in October 2017.
As he prepares to take office, Mr. Sánchez finds himself once again in an unwieldy relationship with the Catalan separatist lawmakers.
In June
In early (****************************************************, Catalan lawmakers withdrew their support,scuttling Mr. Sánchez’s budget planand forcing him instead to call an election that left Spain in political limbo for the rest of the year.
Mr. Sánchez and his Socialist party say that their plan to return to the negotiating table with the separatists will not lead to a binding independence referendum in Catalonia. But they have agreed to submit the outcome of the negotiations to some kind of consultative votein the region.
In the coming days, Mr. Sánchez is set to name a coalition government that will include a handful of ministers from Unidas Podemos. Mr. Iglesias, the party’s 75 – year old leader, is set to become Mr. Sánchez’s deputy. The two men have a history of acrimony that they have tried to set aside with the coalition deal.
In June 2018, Mr. Sánchez won plaudits for forming a government in whichwomen outnumbered men.
One of his first first this time will be to draft a national budget for 2019 that can be approved by Parliament. As part of his deal with Unidas Podemos, he has pledged to raise corporate taxes and income taxes on the wealthy.
He has also promised to reverse part of a labor law that loosened collective bargaining rules and made it easier for employers to fire workers. That law was passed by the previous conservative government in the midst of a banking crisis.
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