Alex Trelinski
BATTLE LINES are continuing to be drawn over who will be Span’s next prime minister after July 23rd’s indecisive general election result.
Acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez made his first appearance on Monday since last week’s vote and published a video stating he planned to remain in power, despite the conservative Partido Popular winning 16 more seats- with a one seat switch from Sanchez’s socialists to the PP once the votes of Spaniards living abroad were tallied over the weekend.
It means that socialist Sanchez along with the left-wing Sumar and regional parties can so far reach 171 seats out of the 176 seats needed for an overall majority- exactly the same as for Feijoo’s PP with support from the far-right Vox and the one seat won by the Navarrese People’s Union.
The seven votes of the fierce pro-independence Junts per Catalunya party remain to be fought over to become ‘kingmakers’ with Sanchez having the better chance of getting something out of them.
Speaking on Monday, Sanchez said that ‘a different horizon is now opening’ compared to that of the previous legislature, marked by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, and that it is ‘the time to consolidate economic growth’.
“The message of the polls has shown that those who propose turning back are not a majority,” he said in reference to the PP and Vox.
“We can protect the rights conquered, achieve new goals that place Spain at the forefront of free and advanced nations. It is time to continue rebuilding political, social and territorial cohesion and leave behind sterile confrontation and political corruption,” said Sanchez.
“I am convinced that there is a broad social majority to continue advancing and it is now time to translate that social majority into a parliamentary majority in the Congress of Deputies and that is what we are going to do as soon as the Cortes are constituted- to work to achieve an investiture that allows us to continue advancing four more years,” he concluded.
The Partido Popular leader, Alberto Nuñez Feijoo, said that ‘as winner of the elections’, his duty ‘is to listen to the rest of the parties’.
He published a social media comment on Monday in response to Sanchez bidding for a parliamentary majority.
“I will not accept any situation that intends to turn half of Spaniards into a minority as marginalising millions of citizens is not forming majorities, but dividing the country,” Feijoo stated.
READ MORE:
- Explainer: How the vote count from Spaniards living abroad just made Pedro Sanchez’s life a little bit more difficult
- Spain’s caretaker prime minister insists repeat election won’t be necessary despite apparent stalemate
- Explainer: Why the winner of Sunday’s general election in Spain has done a U-turn to court the Socialists
