Pedro Sanchez at the showdown. After the expected rejection received in the first vote of confidence, the prime minister in charge will return to Parliament on Tuesday for thesecond and decisive vote.
On January 5, Sanchez needed an absolute majority (176 votes in favor out of 350), but obtained 166 yes, 165 no and 18 abstentions. Tomorrow, January 7, a simple majority (more yes than no) will suffice. By the numbers the leader of the PSOE should have the longed-for investiture which will allow him to return to Moncloa and lead to the formation of the country's first coalition government, together with Podemos and the Basque nationalists of the Pnv. Calculator in hand, the three parties reach 162 seats (120 Psoe, 25 Podemos, 7 Pnv).
The abstention of the 13 pro-independence Catalan deputies of Esquerra Republicana (ERC) will therefore be decisive – the same ones who brought down his government just 10 months ago – with whom Sanchez has signed an agreement which provides, among other things, for the establishment within five days of his inauguration of a negotiating table “on the political conflict in Catalonia between the central government and the Generalitat”, including the possibility of submitting any conclusions to a referendum. Important concessions therefore, which arrived after the intransigence shown by the prime minister in charge during the electoral campaign.
If all goes as planned, Spain will have a new government after months of deadlock, but above all after four early elections in four years.
