Spain appears set to end its 10-month political impasse
Print Edition
SPAIN’S embattled Socialists yesterday voted to lift a long-standing veto that has prevented the conservatives from forming a minority government, in what should finally end a 10-month political impasse.
The conservative Popular Party of acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy won elections last December and again last June but without enough seats to rule alone.
The PP therefore needs the main opposition Socialists to either support its government or abstain in a parliamentary confidence vote.
Yesterday, the policy-setting federal committee of the deeply divided Socialists (PSOE) voted 139 to 96 for abstaining.
The vote capped a high-risk meeting that followed weeks of in-fighting within the PSOE, Spain’s second largest party.
The grouping has been weakened by dismal election results and internal strategy disagreements amid Spain’s efforts to form a government after the two inconclusive general elections.
The divisions came to a head this month when high-ranking Socialists amenable to a conservative government — so as to avoid a third election — forced party leader Pedro Sanchez to resign.
Sanchez had long opposed Rajoy, who came to power in 2011 and whose four-year term was marked by a series of corruption scandals. With Sanchez out of the way and the party run by an interim executive, many of the delegates at yesterday’s meeting supported an abstention.
“Most Spaniards, more than 65 percent, don’t want to go back to the ballot box and it’s the same among Socialist voters,” said lawmaker Ignacio Urquizu.
Now that the Socialists have decided to abstain from another parliamentary confidence vote, Rajoy, who lost one in September, could submit himself to another one next week, with some confidence of victory.
By the beginning of next month, Spain should finally get a government at a sensitive time as the country recovers from a devastating economic crisis.
But with only 137 of the 350 seats in parliament, the PP’s government would be weak.
It would face opposition not only from the Socialists but also two upstart parties — the far-left Unidos Podemos and the centrist Ciudadanos.
Their participation in the last two elections put an end to Spain’s traditional two-party system.
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