MADRID: Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday he intended to seek the support of the lower house to form a new government after an inconclusive election on July 23. “I will ask for parliament’s confidence to form a progressive government,” Sanchez said in a address to the legislators of his Socialist Party (PSOE). He said his party, which won the second-highest number of seats in the general election held last month, will first seek to clinch the lower house speaker position on Thursday. Spain’s election in July produced no outright winner, with the conservative People’s Party (PP) gaining the most seats but falling short of a majority. Both the PP and PSOE have since begun negotiating with smaller parties to court their votes in parliament to form a government.
Sanchez did not say on Wednesday who his coalition partners would be, but has previously said he intends to ally with far-left alliance, Sumar that includes Podemos.
His PSOE, which together with Sumar has 152 seats, will need the 14 parliamentary votes of Catalan separatist parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and the more hardline Junts to win an investiture vote in the 350-seat parliament. While the ERC has indicated a willingness to reach an accord, Junts has stuck to its demands of permission to hold a referendum on Catalan independence and an amnesty for all separatists facing legal charges related to the region’s 2017 failed independence bid. This includes its exiled leader Carles Puigdemont, who Spanish authorities are seeking to extradite from Belgium.
In a nod to the separatists, the Socialists have proposed Francina Armengol as speaker of the lower house. — Reuters
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