Spain's acting PM fails in first attempt to form new government

Spain’s Socialist party leader, Pedro Sánchez, has failed in his first attempt to form a new government after the anti-austerity Unidas Podemos party abstained in a parliamentary vote.

Sánchez, who has been acting prime minister since an inconclusive election in April, needed an absolute majority of at least 176 votes in his favour in the 350-seat house to be confirmed as PM. Instead he received 124 votes in favour and 170 against, and there were 52 abstentions.

The vote now goes to a second round on Thursday when Sánchez only needs a simple majority – ie more “yes” than “no” votes. In the meantime he needs to strike a deal with Podemos in order to secure its MPs’ votes.

(December 20, 2015)  2015 general election

Voter anger over economic woes and corruptions scandals leaders to a hung parliament. The two main parties - the ruling People’s party (PP) and the Socialists (PSOE) - suffer big loses at the expense of newcomers (leftwing) Podemos and (rightwing) Ciudadanos. Neither the PP nor the PSOE manage to secure a majority in parliament to form a new government, so …

(June 26, 2016)  2016 General election

… another election is held in June. Voter turnout is the lowest since the transition to democracy in 1975. The PP’s vote share increases, but parliamentary deadlock continues. PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez refuses to allow PP leader Mariano Rajoy to form a minority government, citing the corruption scandals swirling around the PP.

(October 1, 2016)  Sánchez resigns

Years of simmering discontent among PSOE members with Sánchez boil over and he is ousted as leader after powerful factions rebel against his refusal to allow Rajoy to form a government.

(October 29, 2016)  Rajoy secures role as PM

With Sánchez gone, the political paralysis is broken and Rajoy returns as PM after the PSOE abstains on an investiture vote in parliament.

(May 22, 2017) Sánchez re-elected

Sánchez regains the leadership of the still-divided PSOE, his hardline anti-Rajoy stance bolstered by a slew of corruption scandals involving former senior PP figures in Madrid’s regional government.

(June 26, 2017)  Rajoy testifies in court

Rajoy becomes the first serving Spanish PM to testify in a criminal case. He emphatically denied any knowledge of an illegal funding racket in the PP.

(April 25, 2018)  Cifuentes scandal

The president of Madrid’s regional government, PP's Cristina Cifuentes, resigns after video footage emerged of her apparently being caught stealing two tubs of face cream seven years previously. Rajoy had refused to heed calls to sack Cifuentes after an earlier scandal involving false claims about her academic qualifications.

(June 2, 2018)  Sánchez becomes PM

The PSOE calls a vote of no confidence in the scandal-plagued Rajoy administration, and it passes through parliament with the help of regional parties and Podemos. Sánchez is sworn in as PM the next day.

(February 21, 2019) Budget impasse

Sánchez is unable to get his 2019 budget passed through parliament after the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties who had supported him against Rajoy vote against it. Yet another election is called.

(April 28, 2019)  2019 general election

Another inconclusive election sees the PSOE increases its vote share, as the PP vote plummets and the far-right Vox party enters parliament for the first time.  Speculation immediately turns to how the PSOE will secure the majority needed to form a government.

At the weekend Pablo Iglesias agreed to step aside as Podemos leader after Sánchez accused him of being the main obstacle to forming a coalition. But any hope that Sánchez would respond by offering Podemos senior ministerial positions failed to materialise.

The party was apparently offered the new ministries of youth and housing, as well the vice-presidency for Irene Montero, the Podemos number two and Iglesias’s partner. However, the offer was rejected on the grounds that the posts, which Podemos dismissed as “decorative”, carry no executive power.

“We’re not here to be a Chinese vase,” said party spokeswoman Ione Belarra. “Negotiations are at a standstill but we are confident that the socialist party will reflect and change its position.”

PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' party)

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ party  has governed Spain since turfing the conservative People’s party out of office last year in a vote of no-confidence. But it has struggled to achieve its ambitious agenda as it is a minority government, holding only 84 of the 350 seats in the Spanish congress. Opponents accuse it of being weak and beholden to the Catalan separatists parties on whose support it relied to win power.

Partido Popular (People's party)

The rightwing party governed from 2011 until last year, when it was finally undone after a court case laid bare the corruption at its heart. In the case, Mariano Rajoy became the first serving PM to testify in a criminal case. He was succeeded as party leader by Pablo Casado, who has dragged the party much further to the right in the hope of seeing off the challenge from Vox.

Ciudadanos (Citizens)

Along with Podemos, the young, the centre-right Citizens party achieved a breakthrough in the 2015 election, ending decades of PSOE and PP duopoly. The party has also shifted further to the right in recent months, and made the Catalan crisis a key focus. Its tough line on regional independence and rigorous defence of Spain’s national unity paid off in the 2017 Catalan regional elections, in which Citizens were the single biggest winner.

Podemos (We can)

The anti-austerity party, born of frustration and the indignados movement, looked set to leapfrog the PSOE and become the dominant leftwing political force in the 2016 general election. But mixed messages, internal squabbles and an alliance with the United Left – a coalition that includes the Communist party – saw it do far worse than expected. Podemos has helped to shore up the Sánchez government, but public internal spats have blunted its message and weakened its image.

Vox (Voice)

Vox, led by the pistol-carrying Santiago Abascal, ended four decades of Spanish exceptionalism in December when its performance in the Andalucían elections made it the first far-right party to win seats in Spain since the country’s return to democracy following the Franco dictatorship. Abascal has talked of a 'reconquest' of Spain – a reference to the long campaign against Moorish rule, which concluded in 1492 and also led to the expulsion of Spain’s Jews. Vox, which was formed by disgruntled PP members five years ago, has raged against 'supremacist feminism and gender totalitarianism', and the party has complained that existing domestic violence laws are unfairly weighted against men.

Sam Jones

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During Monday’s investiture debate an angry Iglesias told Sánchez that the 3.7 million people who voted for his party deserved representation in government.

Montero, who is heavily pregnant, voted no by phone, suggesting that Podemos’s decision to abstain rather than outright oppose was taken at the last minute.

With the support of Podemos’s 42 MPs and a few others from small regional parties, Sánchez could get through on Thursday, but given the anger of these potential allies, that support looks uncertain.

Catalan separatist party ERC accused Sánchez of being “irresponsible” for not appearing to want to negotiate with anyone, while Aitor Esteban of the PNV Basque nationalist party said the Socialists had not even been in touch with them in the past few weeks. “They have taken for granted that our vote was going to be positive,” he said.

Sánchez said on Tuesday: “I invited them [Podemos] to be part of a coalition government, the first in our democracy’s history. I’m trying. I’ve offered to share the cabinet with a parliamentary force that is to the left of the socialist party and which doesn’t guarantee me an absolute majority. You can criticise me for my lack of success in these talks, but not for lack of trying.”

Carmen Calvo, the Socialist party’s vice-president, denied that the posts offered were decorative. “We understand that in negotiations there can’t be winners and losers, that you can agree on some things and not on others,” she said.

If Sánchez cannot secure the votes he needs, he has another two months to find a solution, failing which the Spanish will face another general election.

“What we are seeing in Spanish politics is effectively the natural tensions that occur as a political system transitions from an old way of operating (single-party governments) to what appears to be the new normal … (coalition governments),” Alfonso Velasco, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told AFP. “Spain might need another election for politicians to accept the new reality.”

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report