Pedro Sánchez’s hopes of securing another term as Spain’s prime minister have received a boost after his Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) secured the support of Catalan nationalists to help it win the first key parliamentary vote since last month’s inconclusive general election.
Although it was narrowly beaten by the conservative People’s party (PP) in the election – which resulted in a hung parliament – the PSOE did far better than expected and has the edge on its opponents when it comes to forging alliances to create a coalition government.
On Thursday morning, MPs met for the first time since the election on 23 July to elect a new speaker for Congress. Francina Armengol, the former regional president of the Balearic islands who stood as the PSOE’s candidate for the post, was elected by an absolute majority, winning 178 votes in the 350-seat chamber. The PP’s candidate for speaker, Cuca Gamarra, won 139 votes after the conservatives’ potential allies in the far-right Vox party declined to back her. Relations between the two parties – which had been expected to attempt to form a coalition government – have soured since both fell short of expectations last month.
As well as attracting the support of the PSOE’s coalition partners in the far-left Sumar alliance, Armengol won the backing of smaller Basque and Catalan nationalist parties, including the two main Catalan pro-independence parties, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) and the hardline, centre-right Junts party.
Junts – which is led by Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who fled Spain to avoid arrest after orchestrating the failed, unilateral bid for independence six years ago – backed Armengol even though the PSOE had made it clear it would not accede to the party’s demands for a referendum on the issue.
The choice of Armengol, who hails from a region where Catalan is widely spoken, was seen as an attempt to woo Catalan politicians – as was Sánchez’s announcement on Wednesday that he would seek to promote the use of the Catalan, Basque and Galician languages during Spain’s current EU presidency.
The PSOE’s victory on Thursday strengthens its position as it carries on negotiations with smaller parties with a view to obtaining their backing for another Sánchez-led administration.
But while the speaker vote shows the parliamentary arithmetic is on the PSOE’s side, the matter is far from settled and there could yet be a repeat election at the end of the year. Speaking before the vote, the ERC’s spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, stressed that his party’s support for the PSOE on this occasion had “nothing to do” with how it may vote when Sánchez submits himself to an investiture vote.
The backing of Catalan and Basque nationalists could also prove costly for the PSOE. In the run-up to May’s local and regional elections, Sánchez’s opponents repeatedly attacked him for his over-reliance on the likes of the ERC and Bildu, a pro-independence party with links to the defunct Basque terrorist group Eta. Bildu provoked widespread outrage in the May polls after it emerged the party was proposing to field 44 convicted Eta members, including seven people found guilty of violent crimes, as candidates.
