An election repeat in Spain appears less likely after a last-minute deal was reached Thursday regarding control of the Spanish parliament’s main administrative body — providing a boost to socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
Shortly after lawmakers were sworn in, the Catalan separatist Junts party gave its votes to Francina Armengol, the socialist candidate for the presidency of the parliament’s bureau, the powerful body which approves the creation of parliamentary groups, authorizes investigative commissions and ultimately determines which bills are taken up by MPs.
Junts’ support was secured in an 11th-hour deal, which was announced just minutes before the parliament began the new legislative session. The agreement comes as a relief for Sánchez, who hopes to remain in power in the fractured political landscape created by last month’s inconclusive national elections and has spent the past weeks attempting to cobble together sufficient support to form a minority coalition government.
After the July 23 vote, Spain’s left-wing and right-wing political blocs each control 171 seats in the 350-seat chamber. The support of Junts’ MPs is key for the election of the parliament’s leadership — critical to the legislative process — and will ultimately be required again when Sánchez makes his bid to form a government next month.
The Junts party, controlled by the self-exiled former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont, had originally conditioned any support for Sánchez and the Socialist Party to the granting of a blanket amnesty for everyone implicated in the failed 2017 Catalan independence referendum along with Madrid’s consent to hold a new vote on self-determination.
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Sánchez’s socialists have always said Puigdemont’s amnesty and referendum demands are out of the question because they fall foul of Spain’s constitution. Attempts to sway Junts with other offers had so far failed to land with the party’s MPs. And in the end, the last-minute deal which secured the separatists’ support for Armengol doesn’t include measures related to either issue.
Junts’ backing was secured in exchange for new measures promoting the use of the Catalan language in the Spanish parliament and the creation of a special committee tasked with investigating surveillance of Catalan separatists. The party clarified that the agreement only pertains to its support for Armengol’s presidency, not Sánchez’s bid to remain prime minister.
Although the socialists have apparently succeeded in winning the support of a vast array of leftist and separatist parties, Sánchez still doesn’t have the numbers needed to form a government. He requires at least a few Junts MPs belonging to back his candidacy in parliament if he is to remain in office.
Had Junts declined to back Armengol and instead allowed a right-wing candidate to preside over the parliament, it would have likely killed Sánchez’s leadership ambitions and condemned Spain to new elections.
While Thursday’s deal revives hopes that an electoral do-over can be avoided, the difficulty in forging the agreement highlights just how unstable this legislature may be. Even if Sánchez manages to get Puigdemont’s backing to remain in office, it’s unclear how he would be able to govern.
The agreement, meanwhile, pushes conservative leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo out into the cold. His center-right Popular Party won the most votes in last month’s national elections but failed to secure the number of seats needed to form a government.
In contrast, Thursday’s deal with Junts highlights that Sánchez is the figure most likely to garner the required parliamentary support to be prime minister and the socialist leader will no doubt use it next week in a bid to convince Spanish King Felipe VI to appoint him as his candidate to form a government.
This story has been updated.
