He maintained that there is a green light for the possible investiture of its leader, Nuñer Feijóo. The far-right group offered support without asking for ministries in return.
The general coordinator of the Popular Party, Elias Bendodo, assured this Monday that the recent offer of the extreme right party Vox to support the investiture of the conservative Alberto Nuñez Feijóo as the new Spanish president without asking for ministries in exchange clear the way for conservatives to get into government.
Vox’s decision was welcomed by Feijóo himself on Sunday, when it was known, and by the coordinator Bendodo, who maintained that Vox’s change “gives the green light to a possible investiture of the PP” and supposes that “the rules of the game change ”, as indicated.
The party spokesman’s statements are part of an offensive by conservatives to negotiate with other possible partners his arrival at Moncloa and avoid a new election if the blockade by which neither of the two great groups of the right and the Spanish center-left can achieve the necessary majority of 176 seats to take charge of the presidency of the government on 17 of August.
Vox had said on Sunday that they will give their support to the PP without conditions to prevent the current head of government, the socialist “Pedro Sánchez, from being sworn in as president by the hand of all the enemies of Spain.”
However, Feijóo does not have it easy. This Monday, the Basque nationalists reiterated their rejection of their five legislators validating any agreement that includes the extreme right, even though this group has ceded its 33 legislators without setting conditions to guarantee the election of Feijóo in Congress.
Speaking to Cadena Cope, the Spanish bishops’ radio station, Bendodo declared that “the PP is going to offer the Spanish people the formation of a solitary, strong and broad government that starts rolling as soon as possible. Steps were taken so that the party that won the elections forms a government on its own”.
In the elections of last July 23, Núñez Feijóo’s PP obtained 136 seats out of the 350 in Congress, far from the absolute majority of 176 seats necessary to govern alone, even with the support of the 33 deputies obtained by his only potential ally, the far-right Vox party.
Feijóo claimed his right to govern in a minority and last week launched negotiations with various parties, even though the presence of Vox - an ultra-nationalist group that defends a recentralization of the country - is unacceptable for regional formations.
The leader of the PP, however, was stubborn yesterday in his claim to be able to count on the support to be elected president of the Government and allow his party to retake the power that Sánchez and his PSOE have exercised since 2018.
The PSOE obtained 122 seats and its left allies from Sumar, 31, so that together they cover 153 seats. This number could stretch to 172 if they managed to ally themselves with several Catalan and Basque parties that already supported them in the last legislature, circumstantially supporting the Government in the votes in Congress but without being part of the formal alliance between the PSOE and the party of the left United We Can, which was absorbed by Sumar.
Sánchez’s main challenge is to achieve -if necessary- at least the abstention of the seven deputies that Junts per Catalunya drewthe party of the Catalan independence leader Carles Puigdemont, a refugee in Belgium and accused of sedition for a unilateral declaration of independence from Catalonia after an illegal referendum held in 2017.
In addition, the Socialists have appealed the decision of the electoral body to take away a seat in Madrid to give it to the conservatives, after a review of the count. That seat is key to see if the socialist leader would need the vote or just the abstention of Junts.
Until now, an agreement between the two great majority forces on the right and left (the Popular Party and the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) seems unfeasible, even though it would prevent a new electoral date.
Núñez Feijóo insisted this weekend on ending this “uncertainty”, defending thatue “govern the most voted avoiding a “blockade and electoral repetition”.
After the constitution of Parliament on August 17, a process begins in which King Felipe VI, as head of state, has to propose a candidate to try to form a government, which requires an absolute majority in the first vote or a simple one in the second.
If it is not achieved at most two months after the first vote, the country would be headed for new elections, supposedly in December.
Sources: EFE, Télam and Clarín
