Without a majority after the legislative elections, Spain finds itself in the middle of a political puzzle on Monday, with Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his conservative rival Alberto Núñez Feijóo challenged to find a formula to govern and avoid new elections.
The day after the election, left and right began, each on their side, negotiations as complex as they were uncertain in an attempt to escape a new deadlock such as the country has experienced in recent years.
Defying all the polls, which gave him beaten for months, Mr. Sánchez managed on Sunday to limit the gains of the right-wing opposition.
Mr. Feijóo’s People’s Party (PP), which came first, won 136 seats out of a total of 350 in the Congress of Deputies, while the far-right Vox party, its only potential ally, won 33. They therefore only total 169 seats, far from an absolute majority of 176.
Claiming the right to govern in a minority as the winner of the ballot, the leader of the conservatives declared that he had started on Monday morning to establish “contacts with several political forces”, including Vox, “in order to achieve the formation of a stable government”.
But it is difficult to imagine, according to analysts, that Mr. Feijóo can find support beyond Vox and a small right-wing party, the UPN, which has already given him its support, because the far-right formation is a scarecrow for many small regionalist formations.
Mr. Feijóo also called on the Socialists to let him govern by abstaining from a vote of investiture in Parliament, but the latter have already closed the door to this possibility.
“Uncertainty” for months
The result of the ballot “will open a period of political uncertainty which will last for months”, estimates, like the Spanish press, Federico Santi, analyst of the think tank Eurasia Group.
Opposite the PP, the Socialist Party (PSOE) of Mr. Sánchez has 122 deputies and Sumar, his radical left ally, 31.
But despite this score lower than that of the right, the Prime Minister retains a chance of staying in power because he is able to obtain the support of Basque and Catalan parties, which already support him regularly in Parliament.
In front of euphoric activists – shouting “No pasarán!” “(“They will not pass!”), famous anti-fascist slogan of the Civil War (1936-1939) -, Pedro Sánchez in fact also claimed Sunday evening his ability to continue to lead Spain.
“The retrograde bloc of the People’s Party and Vox has been defeated. Many more of us want Spain to keep moving forward and it will be that way,” he said.
With its 153 deputies, the PSOE/Sumar alliance will therefore need the support of several regionalist formations, such as the Catalan separatists of ERC or the Basques of Bildu, a formation considered to be the heir to the political showcase of ETA.
“Decisive”
“We are going to be decisive in this new legislature,” said Bildu spokeswoman Mertxe Aizpurua on Monday morning, saying she wanted to “try to collaborate and work over the next few months so that there is an alternative to the right”.
The left will however also have to ensure the abstention of the party of Catalan separatist Carles Puigdemont, Junts per Catalunya (JxCat), whose leaders have already warned that they would not help Mr. Sánchez to stay in power without compensation.
Sumar announced on Monday that he had instructed one of his officials in Catalonia to start discussions with Junts, which has become a kingmaker with its seven deputies.
If all these conditions are met, Mr. Sánchez could then gather on his behalf 172 deputies, more than the leader of the PP, which would be enough for him during a second vote of investiture, where only a simple majority is required.
Otherwise – which appears to be the most likely in the opinion of analysts – Spain, which has already had four general elections between 2015 and 2019, would be condemned to a new ballot. A scenario that occurs while the country occupies until the end of December the rotating presidency of the European Union.