The Constitution grants the King a role in the election of the candidate for the investiture as president of the government, which since the general elections of December 2015, which gave the blow to bipartisanship, has been having a certain complexity. For years the ballot boxes have not left clear stages and with more or less built majorities.
And this 23-J presents another uncertain situation, with two candidates, Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who want to stand for investiture, and a tie, at 171 seats, between the blocks that support one and the other.
But it is not a decision that the head of state should take now. The first important date in the calendar that leads to the investiture is August 17, when the Congress and the Senate will be constituted, in separate simultaneous plenary sessions that will open the new legislature.
Both chambers will elect the members of the Bureau by secret ballot and ballot box. For these votes, the parties will have reached agreements, which may be the prelude to future investiture pacts. A president, four vice-presidents –two the Senate– and four secretaries are elected, in different votes.
The president of the Congress then goes to the Zarzuela and informs the King, who enters the scene from that moment on. In the following days, Felipe VI will convene a round of consultations with the representatives of the parliamentary groups to determine which candidate – Sánchez or Feijóo – has more options.
Since 2016, ERC and Bildu have not attended consultations in Zarzuela, and in 2019, neither has BNG.
Article 99 of the Constitution, which regulates the consultations that the Head of State must carry out, does not set any criteria for designating a candidate and does not set a deadline for doing so or limit consultations to the parties.
Neutrality, but not passivity. After the 2015 general elections, Felipe VI carried out up to five rounds of consultations in ten months. In the first, Mariano Rajoy, then acting president and winner of the elections, led to an unprecedented situation by telling the King that he did not see himself capable of gathering support for his investiture.
On 23-J Feijóo won. Will it be an advantage? If he does not have a majority that guarantees him the election and neither does Sánchez, the King could be faced with a dilemma. But the situation may change in the coming weeks, if Junts or Coalición Canaria supports one of the candidates. In that case, the investiture would be on track.
