The PSOE is already seriously negotiating the composition of the Congress Table. "With everyone" and "with everything open", indicate sources involved in the conversations with various parties. The two votes on the 17th, to elect the Presidency and the governing body of the Lower House, are the first party ball and Pedro Sánchez does not want to lose the initial pulse of the legislature against Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The right does not have the numbers for an investiture (the PP boasted yesterday of having 171 supporters), but it could defeat the left and its possible partners if any piece of the gear fails. For that, Ferraz tries to coordinate the position of up to three blocks: the Catalan, the Basque and the Canary Islands. It is not a simple sudoku. Voting is secret (historically some group distributed ballots to their deputies to avoid mistakes) and that complicates everything even more.
The game is on. In the initial conversations, the PSOE proposes giving up a position on the Congress Table to nationalists or independentistas, Catalans or Basques. In other words, the Socialists are willing for the PNV to access the governing body of the Chamber, or for Junts and ERC to have the possibility. Officially sources of the PSOE affirm that "nothing is closed" appealing to the usual discretion of their negotiations.
The PNV is a key party in the August 17 vote. Its five deputies are decisive for the left to retain control over the Table. The deputy of Sumar and general secretary of the PCE, Enrique Santiago, yesterday described as "respectable" a proposal launched by the former UP parliamentary spokesman, Pablo Echenique, proposing that the PSOE cede the Presidency of the chamber to nationalist forces. "We are building a broad alliance and I consider that no proposal is ruled out." It would be historic, since the third authority of the State has been, since the first Cortes, for PSOE, PP or UCD.
The Catalan front is another of the blocks with which the PSOE is negotiating. The deputy elected by Barcelona, Teresa Jordà, confirmed yesterday in an interview in El Periódico that the possibility of a pro-independence leader being a member of the Congress Bureau "is part of the negotiations." The confession did not like the socialist part. ERC and Junts do not currently have their own parliamentary group, although Jordà explained that the PSOE has told them that they will not have "any type of problem."
On the 17th there will be two votes. In the first, the Presidency of Congress will be elected. If in a first election no candidate obtains an absolute majority, the vote will be repeated between the two with the most support. If PP, Vox, UPN and CC voted for the candidate proposed by the popular, and the left and its partners did not agree, the PP would win. On the other hand, if CC ends up betting on the PSOE candidate, and Junts votes blank or for its own candidate, the Socialists would win. To choose the four vice-presidents and four secretaries, who will be named successively by the number of votes, Ferraz has to pull even finer threads. In order to maintain control of the body, deputies from majority groups would have to vote for parliamentarians from other formations and that is where the option of electing a nationalist deputy opens up.
The Congress Table has already included representatives of nationalist parties. Of CiU, mainly. The first was Josep Maria Trias de Bes, for four legislatures. He became third vice president. Companys, López de Lerma, Vilajoana and Jané followed in his wake. The PNV, for its part, had Olabarria, González de Txabarri and Beloki. In 2016, the irruption of Podemos and Cs separated the nationalists from the governing body of the hemicycle.
