Spain’s parliament on Wednesday rejected by a wide margin a no-confidence vote in the government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez put forward by the far-right Vox party.
Vox’s motion was based on a host of accusations against the government — led by Sánchez’s Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) — including its handling of new legislation on sexual consent and plans to overhaul the sedition law that was used to prosecute Catalan leaders associated with the failed independence referendum.
The far-right’s vote wasn’t expected to pick up much support, and that proved to be the case, with Vox’s 52 lawmakers joined by just one from the center-right Ciudadanos in supporting the motion. There were 201 votes against, with 91 abstentions (most of which were from the main opposition Popular Party or PP).
Vox’s suggested candidate to replace Sánchez as PM had the motion been successful was Ramón Tamames, an 89-year-old economist and former communist.
The vote followed two days of debate on the issues contained in the motion, during which Sánchez said: “This is a motion to stop Spain moving forward; to make it go backward. In the PP’s case, that’s 10 years. In Vox’s case, that’s half a century.”
