Feijóo loses the first investiture vote but consolidates his leadership as Sánchez's scourge

There have been no surprises. The result of the first investiture vote of the popular candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has been as expected. 172 yeses versus 178 noes. The road to failure is paved. The leader of the PP will not obtain the confidence of the Chamber. On Friday, when the second and final scrutiny takes place, the position of Congress will be ratified. It will be very little, four votes, but enough – just one difference would be enough – to overthrow his aspiration to reach the Government.

The failure, however, has not made a dent in Feijóo's leadership at the head of one of the two blocks into which Parliament is divided.. A block that, in the absence of four seats, occupies half of the Hemicycle. The popular will lose the investiture – in fact he himself took it for granted – but he has established himself as the standard-bearer of the scourge to a rival, Pedro Sánchez, who has preferred to avoid the debate so as not to have to reveal the amount of the bill that he will pay to independentists. and abertzales in exchange for their investiture.

“This debate has been worth it,” the PP candidate said today at the end of the session, “because we have all portrayed ourselves, with words and with silences” and because it has become clear that “there is an alternative.”. “I,” he stressed, “will emerge from this debate with my principles and those of eleven million voters, intact.”

Starting on Friday, when the Chamber confirms the failed claim of the popular candidate, the time of a new candidate, Pedro Sánchez, will begin to run.. The same one who assured that he would never agree with Bildu, that the amnesty did not fit in the Constitution and that those who were involved in the attempt at the process “very clearly” committed a crime of “rebellion”. Now its reissue at La Moncloa depends on all of them: ERC, Junts and Bildu. Also from the PNV, a formation that, depending on convenience, bets either on the left or on the right.

What is foreseeable is that Felipe VI will without wasting time open a new round of contacts with the parties that sit in Congress to make a second designation of a candidate for the investiture.. It is also true that neither the Catalan secessionists nor the Basque abertzales attend it, once again.. The head of state will have to trust Sánchez's word when he assures him that he has the support of all of them to be invested. Without that support, the socialist's guaranteed votes would fall very short.

Pedro Sánchez enters the Chamber during the intervention of Bildu spokesperson, Mertxe Aizpurua. JAVIER BARBANCHO Demands of the independence movement

It is also very foreseeable that Pedro Sánchez will pay and accept the demands of the independence movement: amnesty, first, and a self-determination referendum, later.. And, consequently, he can form the Government again.. And, in this scenario, what emerges clearly from Feijóo's failed investiture debate is that the popular one will be the undisputed leader of an opposition that already appears very tough for as long as the legislature remains in place.. And also, he is determined to try again in the belief that the opportunity will come, as they say in his party, “sooner rather than later.”

Throughout the debate, the leader of the PP moved on three levels: censuring Sánchez for his policy of concessions to those who attacked the State, those already confirmed and those he assumes are yet to come; outline the general lines that he would put in place if he could form a Government, including as their basis up to half a dozen State pacts with the PSOE (territorial policy, water, welfare state, families, institutional and economy) and finally, his reply to the range of minority parties willing to sell their votes to the highest bidder.

These were the candidate's guidelines and, despite the surprise of Sánchez's decision to avoid the debate, the candidate knew how to maintain them until the end. Today, the second session of the parliamentary discussion, the intervention of the socialists represented by deputy Óscar Puente, had fallen into oblivion.

Feijóo, at least for now, has managed to consolidate himself as the leader of a right that aspires to reunify. The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, on this occasion has made it easy for him, although his support costs the popular party the categorical rejection of other formations such as the PNV. However, between adding 33 seats or only five, there is no color for the PP.

Whoever is still a candidate for the investiture until Friday has opted in his first major parliamentary debate for a policy that defends “the principles and the word” and that does not give in to the “blackmail” of those whose project is to dismember the State and dynamite what they contemptuously call “regime of '78” and “false Transition.”

Feijóo marked a definitive line against his main rival, the silent Sánchez, by emphasizing that he would never accept power if it meant accepting the demands of a fugitive from Justice like Puigdemont and, later, stating that he did not want Bildu's votes and describing It is an “immense honor” that Otegi's people opt for the socialist and not him.

The leader of the PP, over the course of two days, wanted to present himself as the defender of the “equality of all Spaniards” and the politician who “puts the general interest before personal ambition”. Also as “the free candidate” who does not bow down to extortion and the parliamentarian who has a reply for everyone: from Sumar to the PNV, a force the latter, to which Feijóo did not fail to warn that it runs the double risk of being overtaken by Bildu in his own territory and being bullfighted by Sánchez.

The candidate spoke of “concord”, “consensus” and “reliability” and claimed to be against “frontism” and digging trenches. And he also repeatedly insisted that his party has been the winner of the last three electoral elections: the municipal, regional and general elections.. But in the Spanish parliamentary system, in reality the one who wins is not the one who accumulates the most votes but the one who manages, with whatever formula, to attract more support in Congress.. And on this occasion, unless Puigdemont raises his thumb or not, Sánchez has more assets.