Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez appears to have secured another term in office on Friday after getting the support of two more regional parties.
Sanchez bagged the backing of the Basque National Party after meeting with its leader, Andoni Ortuzar at the Congress of Deputies.
An added bonus is vote of the single deputy from the Canarian Coalition, Cristina Valido, which means Sanchez can get an absolute majority of 179 out of 350 in next week’s investiture vote.
His opponents from the Partido Popular, Vox, and the deputy from the Union de Pueblo Navarro can only muster 171 votes.
After an inconclusive election held on July 23, Sanchez’s Socialist PSOE party spent months negotiating with smaller parties including the far-left Sumar plus Catalan, Galician and Basque nationalist parties- most of which supported in his previous term.
“We have managed to secure a majority that will make possible the investiture of Pedro Sanchez,” acting minister for parliamentary relations Felix Bolanos told SER radio.
The more complicated deal was the one secured on Thursday with Junts- the separatist Catalunya party which includes passing a law granting amnesty to those convicted over the region’s illegal independence referendum in 2017.
“We have very far apart and different positions but this deal means we are doing our best to understand each other. Spain and Catalunya deserve that,” Bolanos said.
The most divisive aspect of the proposed amnesty though is it would allow Catalan separatist leaders such as Junts leader Carles Puigdemont, who fled Spain to avoid arrest to run for office again.
Sanchez’s right-wing opponents have accused him of putting the rule of law in Spain on the line for his own political gain, while some judges claim an amnesty would be a violation of the principles of constitutional checks and balances.
READ MORE:
- An ‘unprecedented attack on Spanish democracy’: Leader of Spain’s conservative Popular Party slams Pedro Sanchez’s Catalan amnesty deal
- The Socialists’ Catalunya deal explained: The price Pedro Sanchez will pay to return to power
- Spain’s King Felipe nominates Pedro Sanchez for prime ministerial investiture vote
