"I'm not going to a fake investiture", warned Pedro Sánchez when on October 3 Felipe VI asked him to form a government, as a result of the general elections of July 23 and after the failed investiture of the leader of the Party Popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
"It is time for politics, commitment to the country and generosity, so that we can all find a way to build a parliamentary majority that will allow us a government, not for an investiture, but for a legislature". assured Sánchez in the appearance he made in Moncloa after accepting the King's commission.
After getting back on an accelerated rollercoaster, 38 days after assuming his candidacy, the leader of the PSOE 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 possible the investiture of Pedro Sánchez", celebrated in the early hours of the morning the Minister of the Presidency in function, Félix Bolaños. "Pedro Sánchez's investiture is guaranteed", certified late in the morning the deputy general secretary of the PSOE and acting Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero.
Between the two statements, the last pending pacts were signed for Sánchez to pass the bar for the absolute majority, with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNB) and the Canarian Coalition (CC), once the day before the PSOE had signed in Brussels· the most difficult agreement to achieve, with Junts per Catalunya.
Sánchez wanted to give special relevance to the staging of the pact with the Basque nationalists, and he signed it himself, with the president of the PNB, Andoni Ortuzar, in Congress. The only other agreement signed by the PSOE leader himself was the sealing with the leader of Sumar, acting second vice-president Yolanda Díaz, to form a new coalition government.
Next, María Jesús Montero signed the investiture and legislature agreement with the organizing secretary of CC, David Toledo. The pact regarding the Canary 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", warned Bolaños. Despite the harsh offensive of the right and the riots that ultra elements lead every night in the protests called at the gates 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 been chosen at random, rather they have been elected by the people", he emphasized.
This absolute majority of 179 seats for the re-election of Sánchez as president, which according to the PSOE will not only be an investiture, but will also give stability to a four-year legislature, will be made up by the PSOE itself (121 seats), Sumar (31), Esquerra Republicana (7), Junts per Catalunya (7), EH Bildu (6), the PNB (5), the BNG (1) and Coalició Canària (1).
The bloc of no to the investiture of the leader of the PSOE, on the other hand, will only get 171 seats: those of the PP (137), the ultra-right Vox (33) and the Unió del Poble Navarrès (1).
As in the previous legislature, the parliamentary majority that must support at all times the new progressive coalition government, now between the PSOE and Sumar, has a transversal character in the political spectrum, since it includes formations of the left, of centre-left and centre-right, with nationalist and pro-independence parties.
But in this new legislature, Sánchez will begin with more parliamentary support than in his previous investiture, on January 7, 2020. On that occasion, the PSOE leader managed to remain a tenant of La Moncloa - where he arrived on 2 June 2018, after winning the motion of no confidence that overthrew Mariano Rajoy – thanks to a simple majority of 167 seats, which narrowly exceeded the 165 votes obtained by the no bloc. The key to that investiture was the 18 abstentions from ERC and Bildu.
The heterogeneous majority that supported the first coalition government of democracy, to which Sánchez himself recognized that few people gave him much life expectancy, consolidated and strengthened, nevertheless, until managing to approve three general budgets of the State consecutively and more than 200 laws, with an unusual political stability despite the succession of crises that arose - from the pandemic to the war in Ukraine, among other emergencies - that impacted the legislature.
After the PSOE's agreements with the PNB and CC, which already guarantee the re-election of Sánchez, the amnesty bill still needs 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 common agreement with the candidate.
The Congress Bureau will meet on Tuesday. And, although the date of the plenum still needs to be confirmed, the PSOE already has Wednesday 15 and Thursday 16 November highlighted in the calendar. Since the PSOE has an absolute majority, the investiture can be resolved in the first vote, in a plenary session lasting only two days. And, immediately, Sánchez will be able to appoint his government. Again, yes, in a very uncertain scenario.
