The time has come once again for Spain to restart the institutional clock.
Today, the outgoing Premier is in charge Mariano Rajoy will appear at the Cortes to ask for the confidence of the deputies. During the speech delivered yesterday in front of the 350 deputies of the Iberian Congress, the leader of the Popular Party stressed the importance of "voting responsibly". Madrid has been without a government for almost nine months. Two electoral rounds were not enough to finally be able to untie the knot of the political skein in which the country finds itself. In both cases Rajoy won without however being able to grab the necessary absolute majority.
According to him, giving Spain a stable executive that is able to carry on the economic growth that the Iberian peninsula has been implementing over the last two years is a duty that parliamentarians can no longer shirk. Returning to the polls for the third time in a year is a risk that the country can afford. In reality, to date, the "risk" seems to have turned into a certainty.
The chances that Rajoy will walk out of Congress today with confidence in his pocket are slim to none. During the first vote, the number one of the PP would need an absolute majority (176 seats).
Thanks to the agreement reached with Ciudadanos, the Populars could obtain the go-ahead of 170 out of 350 deputies (137 belonging to the same party, to which must be added the 32 C's and one vote of the Canarian Party representative.) So there are six votes left.
A second vote of confidence, by simple majority, will be held on Friday 2 September. To succeed in this case, the Prime Minister in charge would need at least 11 MPs willing to abstain, allowing him to bring the government home. Even this time, however, the prospects do not seem to be the best. The only way to do this would be to change the mind of some of the 85 PSOE deputies, whose general secretary Pedro Sanchez has repeatedly reiterated his intention to vote no. Until last August 29, Rajoy made an attempt to move the socialists towards abstention, but the meeting with Sanchez produced no change.
It should be emphasized that, together with the PSOE, the 72 representatives of Podemos and the 24 Catalan and Basque nationalist and pro-independence deputies will also vote against Rajoy's investiture.
As stated earlier today's vote will set off the institutional clock for the third time in a year. From today there will be just over two months of time. In the event that Spain does not have a new Premier by 2 November, citizens will return to the polls in December (there is already talk of 25). A possibility that no longer seems to be remote but on the contrary becomes more probable day by day.
