Pedro Sánchez Starts His Third Term in a Political Turmoil

The new government is the result of a deal between the PSOE, Sumar and many independentist parties, and the deal with the Catalans’ Junts is causing instabilities.

European Parliament from EU; Pietro NAJ-OLEARI, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

After a long negotiation process that started after the 23rd July’s general elections, a new Spanish government will be led for the third time by the leader of the ‘Partido Socialist Obrero Español’ Pedro Sanchez. Sanchez gained a tight majority after the elections’ results didn’t give a clear majority, the parliament is in fact composed of two blocks, the right one was formed by the ‘Partido Popular’, the best-performing party of the elections, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo with 33,05% won 136 seats in the congress and by ‘Vox’ a populist far-right party led by Santiago Abascal which lost almost 20 seats compared to the 2019 elections (12,39%, 33 seats), and a left block formed by the former government coalition composed by Sanchez’s PSOE that improved compared to 2019 reaching 31,70% and 122 seats and the left-wing platform ‘Sumar’ led by the former labour minister Yolanda Díaz that took the votes that ‘Podemos’ won in 2019 with 12,31% and 31 seats won.

These results meant that the king-maker role ended up in the hands of the independentist parties, Feijóo found his alliance with Vox stopped at 169 seats with 175 necessary to form a government and Sanchez with 153. The 28 remaining seats, fundamental to form government in this legislation are split in the following way: ‘Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya’ 7 seats, ‘Junts per Catalunya’ 7 seats, ‘Euskal Herria Bildu’ 6 seats, ‘Partido Nacionalista Vasco’ 5 seats, ‘Bloque Nacionalista Gallego’ 1 seat, Coalición Canaria 1 seat, ‘Union del Pueblo Navarro’ seat. 

Elections were called early by  Prime Minister Sanchez after a PSOE net defeat in the regional elections in an attempt to find the PP and Vox unprepared for a national electoral campaign. This strategy was partially successful, in fact, the centre-right coalition expected to reach a safe majority found themselves 6 seats short of a majority. The party that suffered the most from Sanchez’s strategy was Vox, Abascal’s party was polling close to 14% with 40 expected seats, however, they reached only 33 seats. This added to the party's strong opposition to the independentist parties, made it almost impossible for Feijóo to form a larger coalition, finding support only from two small allies, CC and UPN. Despite not having the numbers Feijóo received the blessing by King Felipe to attempt an investiture on September 27th that ended up in a failure with 172 votes to 178.

This failed Feijóo attempt cleared the way for an attempt to premiership for Sanchez. The PSOE-Sumar alliance managed to get the support of other smaller groups in the ERC, EHB, PNV, BNG and CC building a wide regional parties’ support. However, even with this coalition, Sanchez would have fallen short of 3 votes from the premiership. The only alliance remaining for the PSOE leader was the party Junts per Catalunya, the independentist party led by Carles Puidgemont, famous to the masses for being the Catalan president who attempted secession with the illegal independence referendum of 2017 and the consequential judiciary procedures that brought him to a self-imposed exile in Waterloo, Belgium.

Generalitat de Catalunya (Attribution or Attribution), via Wikimedia Commons

Junts posed at the base of a potential deal an amnesty for all the Catalan leaders involved in the secession attempt, the beneficiaries will be 309 people and 73 policemen facing criminal lawsuits linked to the events of the 2017 referendum; these amnesties also include a couple of cases of alleged terroristic actions by two groups that blocked roads and rail lines and occupied the Barcelona-El Prat airport, however, except for this two cases the amnesty will not include anyone found to have carried out terrorism, torture or “wilful actions” that have resulted in death or serious injury.

The general national response wasn’t probably the one that Sanchez hoped, once the deal was announced on November 9th. Sanchez was accused both by PP and Vox of being willing to do everything to remain attached to power, this led to two manifestations in front of the PSOE headquarters in Madrid with clashes between some rioters and the police.

Opposition leaders heavily attacked Sanchez, accusing him of having done a “coup d’etat” and the president of the Comunidad de Madrid Isabel Diaz Ayuso (PP) accused the Prime Minister of installing a dictatorship. Critiques also arrived from some judges that declared the amnesty a direct attack on the state of law.

Sanchez defends his choice by saying that this amnesty will cure a long-lasting open wound in the relations between the Spanish government and Catalans, which was opened by the strong and violent response to the 2017 referendum of the then PP-led government of Mariano Rajoy.

Sanchez declared that he wants to continue the good work his previous government has done in the last four years, however, it will be difficult for him to keep together such a different coalition as the one that supports him.

The government formation will be made only by PSOE and Sumar members and will have the external support of the nationalist parties, it is noticeable however, the absence in government of Irene Montero, the leader of Podemos, part of the Sumar list, the former Minister of Equality. She was part of a scandal in the previous legislature because the ‘solo sì es sì’ law on sexual consent reduced some sentences of sex offenders because of the retroactivity of the law and a grey area that caused big problems for the previous government.

Sanchez promises stability and a legislature-long government that will work constantly to continue the progress made in the previous legislature despite the evident instability of the political scenery in which Spain is right now in the hope that the government will stabilise and reduce the instability that the June 23rd elections caused. 

References

EL PAÍS. (2023). Elecciones generales 23J | España en EL PAÍS. EL PAÍS. Retrieved November 22, 2023, 

https://elpais.com/espana/elecciones-generales/

Redazione Il Post. (2023, May 29). Sánchez ha convocato elezioni anticipate. Il Post. https://www.ilpost.it/2023/05/29/spagna-elezioni-anticipate-23-luglio/?homepagePosition=0

Jones, S. (2023, September 29). Alberto Núñez Feijóo fails to win Spanish MPs' backing to become PM. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/29/alberto-nunez-feijoo-again-asks-spanish-mps-to-back-him-for-pm

Jones, S. (2023, November 15). What is the Catalan amnesty deal agreed by Pedro Sánchez? The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/15/what-is-the-catalan-amnesty-deal-agreed-by-pedro-sanchez

Lopez-Medel, J. (2023, November 17). Le ragioni dell'amnistia per i leader catalani. Internazionale (original art. from Ctxt), 34-35.

Boille, F., & Haski, P. (2023, November 9). Il premier spagnolo Pedro Sánchez raggiunge un accordo con gli indipendentisti catalani. Internazionale. https://www.internazionale.it/ultime-notizie/2023/11/09/spagna-sanchez-puigdemont-accordo

Jones, S. (2023, November 18). Rally held in Madrid against Catalan amnesty after Sánchez sworn in as Spanish PM. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/18/protest-rally-madrid-catalan-amnesty-pedro-sanchez-sworn-in-spanish-pm