Alex Trelinski
A MOVE by the far-right Vox party to oust the Pedro Sanchez government from office failed, as expected, in Congress on Wednesday.
The Vox no-confidence motion attracted just 53 votes- namely 52 Vox deputies and that of a former Ciudadanos deputy.
The government got 201 votes from the ruling leftist PSOE and Unide Podemos coalition, as well as from small regional parties.
“We knew that this bizarre attempt would flop,” said Pedro Sanchez.
“The only aim of this destructive no-confidence motion was to push Spain back 50 years,” he added.
The Vox move failed to get the support of the conservative Partido Popular(PP) with its 91 deputies abstaining.
Vox had put forward Ramon Tamames, 89, as a potential prime minister who had pledged to call a general election on the same date as local and regional votes on May 28.
Pedro Sanchez will have to go to the country before the end of the year, with early December seen as a likely date.
Over its abstention, PP spokesperson, Cuca Gamarra, said: “We did not vote yes out of respect for the Spanish people and we voted no out of respect for Mr. Tamames.”
The PSOE’s Patxi Lopez said that the ‘abstention of the PP legitimises Vox’.
Political analysts suggested that the two days of debate strongly favoured the ruling coalition government as it was allowed a major platform to explain its policies since coming to office in 2018, while Vox has come out as a big loser.
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