Political
Deadlock Extended as Spanish Socialists Reject Conservative Government Plan
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| Considering the political turmoil Spain is coping very well |
It’s probably why the Spanish people have such a disconnect
with their politicians. The leaders of the country have been stuck in a
political deadlock since last December with no one able to agree on who should
be in charge. The country was forced to have another election last month and
the end result was that there wasn’t much of a result.
Things were a little hopeful after the election in June. In
the days following the election incumbent Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy was left
emboldened that his People’s Party increased their vote while the far-left
Podemos Party saw their votes go down.
Things changed on Wednesday when the Socialists, currently
the second biggest political party in Spain, said that they do not support
Rajoy being the prime minister just as Rajoy was getting ready to go back to
the job he’s had since 2010.
The leader of the Socialists, Pedro Sánchez ruled out a
coalition between his party and the People’s Party even though he is on record
saying he would do “whatever it takes” to avoid the need for a third election.
Apparently joining forces with the centre-right PP is not something he can do
after all.
Rajoy has been trying to convince the leaders of the smaller
parties to group up and create a coalition with the PP but he’s not having an
easy time doing it. This is because most of these smaller parties were created
to fight the PP, not join up with them.
The alternative for these parties is the Socialists, who won
the second-most number of votes in both elections. One option is for the Socialists
could to join up with the liberal party Ciudadanos and Podemos. The problem
here is that Ciudadanos only garnered the fourth-largest number of votes and
won only 32 seats, which doesn’t equate to a lot of political clout.
Things were made worse for the socialists following the news
that the leader of Ciudadanos, Albert Rivera, said that he and his party would
abstain in a confidence vote in a conservative government. He essentially said
that if the PP were able to put together a majority government then he wouldn’t
fight them.
Rivera said that he was keen to remove the deadlock and move
forward and that he believes a technical abstention would be better than having
a third election at this point. He also spoke of his hope that the other
parties would feel the same way and do the same thing.
An abstention from Ciudadanos would mean that the PP would
need to find 23 additional seats to support the 137 they won in the election in
order to create a majority parliament. If the Socialists were to also abstain
then the election would basically go to the PP but this seems unlikely given
Sánchez’s feelings about the PP and Rajoy.
So Spain is still where they were last December. Well, the
economy is doing better, as is the job market and the cost of living in Spain is still relatively low. In fact outside of the political
deadlock the country is doing quite well. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they
kept squabbling and let the country run itself.
