“I am not going to a false investiture,” warned Pedro Sánchez when, on October 3, Felipe VI commissioned him to form a government, as a result of the general elections of July 23 and after the frustrated investiture of the leader of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
“It is time for politics, for commitment to the country and for generosity, so that we can all find a way to articulate a parliamentary majority that will allow us a government, not for an investiture but for a legislature,” Sánchez said in the appearance he made at the Moncloa after accepting the King's commission.
After getting on an accelerated roller coaster again, 38 days after assuming his candidacy, the leader of the PSOE already yesterday definitively guaranteed the support of an absolute parliamentary majority of 179 seats to endorse his re-election as President of the Government next week.
“We have achieved a majority that will make the investiture of Pedro Sánchez possible,” the acting Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, celebrated early in the morning. “The term of President Pedro Sánchez is guaranteed,” certified the vice general secretary of the PSOE, and acting Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, late in the morning.
Between both statements, the last pending agreements were signed for Sánchez to surpass the bar of absolute majority, with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and with the Canary Coalition (CC), once the PSOE signed the most difficult agreement in Brussels the day before. to achieve, with Junts per Catalunya.
Sánchez wanted to give special relevance to the staging of the pact with the Basque nationalists, and he himself signed it, together with the president of the PNV, Andoni Ortuzar, in Congress. The only other agreement signed by the PSOE leader himself was the one sealed with the leader of Sumar, the acting second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, to form a new coalition government.
Next, María Jesús Montero signed the investiture and legislative agreement with the organization secretary of CC, David Toledo. The pact on the Canarian agenda sealed the understanding, despite the fact that this formation governs with the PP in the archipelago, and has rejected the amnesty.
“Our goal is to have 179 votes in the investiture,” Bolaños warned. Despite the harsh offensive by the right, and the disturbances carried out every night by ultra elements in the protests called at the doors of the PSOE headquarters in Ferraz, the minister highlighted the legitimacy of this new parliamentary majority: “There are 179 deputies who do not "They have not been chosen at random, but they have been chosen by the people," he stressed.
This absolute majority of 179 seats for the re-election of Sánchez as president, which the PSOE intends will not only be an investiture, but will also give stability to a four-year legislature, will be made up of the socialist group (121 seats), Sumar ( 31), Esquerra Republicana (7), Junts per Catalunya (7), EH Bildu (6), the PNV (5), the BNG (1) and the Canarian Coalition (1).
The bloc of no to the investiture of the PSOE leader, on the other hand, will only gather 171 seats: those of the PP (137), the far-right Vox (33) and the Navarro People's Union (1).
As already happened in the last legislature, the parliamentary majority that must support the new progressive coalition government at every step, now between the PSOE and Sumar, has a transversal character in the political spectrum, including left-wing, center-left and center-right, with nationalist and independence parties.
But in this new legislature, Sánchez will leave with more parliamentary support than in his previous investiture, on January 7, 2020. On that occasion, the leader of the PSOE managed to remain a tenant of the Moncloa - where he arrived on June 2, 2018, after winning the motion of censure that overthrew Mariano Rajoy – thanks to a slim simple majority of 167 seats, which barely surpassed the 165 votes gathered by the no bloc. The key to that investiture was the 18 abstentions of ERC and Bildu, while Junts voted against.
The heterogeneous majority that supported the first coalition government of democracy, to which Sánchez himself recognized that few gave much hope in life, was consolidated and reinforced, however, until it managed to approve three consecutive general State budgets, and more than 200 laws, with unusual political stability despite the succession of crises – from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, among other emergencies – that impacted the legislature.
After the PSOE agreements with the PNV and CC, which already guarantee Sánchez's re-election, the amnesty law proposal has yet to be registered in Congress. Then, probably next Monday, the president of the Lower House, Francina Armengol, will announce the date of the investiture debate, in agreement with the candidate.
Next Tuesday the Congress Board will meet. And, in the absence of confirming the date of the plenary session, the PSOE already has Wednesday and Thursday, November 15 and 16, highlighted on the calendar. By having an absolute majority, the investiture can be resolved in the first vote, in a plenary session that lasts only two days. And, immediately, Sánchez will be able to appoint his new government. Again, yes, in a very uncertain scenario.
