You can't waste time, they say. With the failure of the leader of the Popular Party, it is time for the leader of the PSOE. And Pedro Sánchez plans to appear today in Moncloa, to confirm his readiness to opt for a new investiture as President of the Central Government, as soon as Felipe VI commissions him after concluding with Alberto Núñez Feijóo the round of consultations with the groups he undertook yesterday.
Without the concurrence of four of the formations that are essential for the re-election of Sánchez –ERC, Junts, EH Bildu and BNG–, the King received yesterday in the Zarzuela the representatives of the Navarrese People's Union (UPN) and the Coalition Canària (CC), in addition to Aitor Esteban (PNB), Yolanda Díaz (Sumar) and Santiago Abascal (Vox). Felipe VI's round of consultations will culminate this morning with Sánchez and Feijóo. And the PSOE leader's turn will begin in order to secure a parliamentary majority that endorses his investiture and avoids an electoral repeat. A path that he already knows will be full of mines. But the difficulty of the goal will not slow him down.
Sánchez has, a priori, the express rejection of his investiture by the 171 deputies who add up the PP, Vox and UPN. A block of no to his re-election that the leader of the PSOE will try to overcome with an absolute majority of 178 - or even 179 - seats in Congress.
But the leader of the PSOE already assumed yesterday, the day before receiving the King's order as planned, that most of the possible allies for his investiture would come forward to announce that they will sell their eventual support to the investiture, in case it is finally achieved.
Statements that, in any case, did not surprise Moncloa or the PSOE leadership at all. All the possible members of a hypothetical block of yes to the re-election of Sánchez, as is logical, want to increase their support in view of the negotiations, on multiple sides, for the investiture. "It's obvious", recognize the socialists.
It is not just, therefore, that ERC and Junts in particular enter the investiture equation, with the amnesty of those accused of the process under study, despite the fact that the political and media focus of the negotiation is fixed on Catalan independence .
Even the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, and her spokesman, Ernest Urtasun, raised the pressure yesterday and warned that "we are still far from reaching an agreement" with the PSOE, despite the fact that, in the event of investiture, a coalition government will be formed between the two formations.
In any case, the political space to the left of the PSOE maintains its inveterate internal struggle. The spokesman for the Podemos executive, Pablo Fernández, questioned Sumar's pressure on the PSOE to seal a programmatic agreement: "To make invitations, you have to be credible", he said, referring to Díaz.
The PNB, as is its custom, avoided setting a position after the meeting that Aitor Esteban held with the King. But the Lehendakari, Iñigo Urkullu, recalled in an interview with Ser the Sánchez Executive's non-compliance with the agreed transfer schedule. And he warned that, with the current parliamentary arithmetic, Sánchez will need "all the votes all the time" to be able to sail through the legislature.
"The votes, you have to win them", warned Sánchez yesterday, for her part, the spokeswoman of the BNG, Ana Pontón. And he observed a certain "relaxation" in the PSOE regarding the negotiations for an eventual investiture of Sánchez, despite the fact that he warned that without concrete agreements on the Galician agenda, the Bloc will not support him.
In addition to the Catalan, Basque and Galician agenda, there is the Canary Islands agenda. The Canarian Coalition spokeswoman, Cristina Valido, assured yesterday, after being received by the King at the Zarzuela, that there is currently no contact or open negotiation with the PSOE for the investiture. "We don't know if we will be needed", admitted Valido, although he showed a willingness to negotiate, despite his express rejection of amnesty.
In Moncloa and the leadership of the PSOE, even so, they do not rule out that CC could be added to the bloc of Sánchez's investiture, despite the fact that he voted in favor of Feijóo's. The majority would then rise to 179 votes in favor.
In this case, moreover, a yes from the only CC deputy would allow the investiture of Sánchez only with the abstention of Junts. But the PSOE admit that eventual support from the Canary Islands would not lower the negotiation with the formation of Carles Puigdemont. They think that the price of Junts would be the same, without half-tones. "Either Junts enters it, or it doesn't," they assume.
But in Moncloa they also point out that, despite everyone raising their demands and alerts, no one is closing the door, at least for now. And Sánchez is ready to play all the cards.
