Spain’s Political Landscape Tense Ahead of Investiture Decision

Felipe VI’s consultations with the different political forces are advancing, but some do not want to show all their cards and others admit they are unable to clear up the question of whether or not there will be an investiture session next week.

Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo will attend the round of meetings at Zarzuela this Tuesday without having guaranteed the necessary support, after a month of discreet conversations and a contact that resulted in the formation of a Board controlled by the majority of the parties that support the government in office.

Feijóo maintains his willingness to submit to the vote despite the weak situation in which he finds himself and with the support of Vox now in doubt. Sánchez, for his part, threatens to leave him free to delve into the wear and tear of another parliamentary defeat. But it is the King who has the ball in his court. You have three options: propose Sánchez, Feijóo… or delay the decision. The PNV points out that the round of contacts will not serve to designate a solid candidate.

UPN and the Canarian Coalition have shielded their support for Feijóo, but he would not even get out of the siding by adding Vox. In this scenario, other parties consulted by El Confidencial are already agitating the scenario of a second round of consultations, which would give the leader of the PP and, above all, Sánchez, more time to try to tie up the support they need.

They require an absolute majority in the first vote, more yes than no 48 hours later. And, of the four parties that have excluded themselves from the talks with the monarch, Junts per Catalunya is the great unknown. Puigdemont continues to hold the key for the coalition to remain in Moncloa.

On Monday, the acting second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, criticized that these formations have “declined” to go to consultations to “explain” their positions. The leader of Sumar was very careful not to venture what Felipe VI will do, after his interview with the monarch, but he also made it clear that there is only “one real possibility” of obtaining the majority: that of the block of which he is a part.

For their part, acting Executive sources acknowledge that, although the negotiation is expected to be difficult, Junts has taken “very important steps”, not only with its support in the voting of the Table. They also point out that the position that Vox adopts this Tuesday, after his appointment with Felipe VI, will be decisive in clarifying whether the King will designate Feijóo as a candidate.

If it has 172 endorsements, they say, it would make some sense that it wanted to make them visible. Although they are not enough to make him president. The PSOE, as it did since the general elections of 23-J, steps on the brake.

This Monday, the acting Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, demanded to give the King “time” to decide on the candidate, almost in parallel to the fact that his party communicated to Feijóo that it will not make efforts to prevent him from running for a “fake investiture “.

On the one hand, the Socialists charged against the Popular Party for pressing the monarch “daily” to propose Feijóo and, on the other, they gloated that the conservative leader attended an investiture without having his support tied up, assuming that will crash against the parliamentary majority.

Sánchez’s little haste collides with Feijóo’s accelerated roadmap. Despite the doubts that important party leaders express in private, the PP leader will ask the King to propose him as a candidate to go to an investiture session, even with the almost certainty that it will end in failure.

Some barons of the PP support the decision of the leadership, understanding that Feijóo must reverse the feeling of defeat that has settled in the ranks of the popular and fight as the “winner of the elections”.

Despite the more than possible failure, the party leadership reiterates that starring in an investiture would allow Feijóo to present “a model of the country”. A session with campaign overtones before a possible scenario of a return to the polls in December.

In the PP there are other voices that warn, however, that exposing themselves to another parliamentary defeat after the “ridicule” of the Congress Table would be “suicide” for Feijóo.

The same sources urge the popular leader to “assume reality” and prepare for a “tough” opposition to Sánchez to bring down a government as soon as possible that, if consummated, would be mired in “instability”.. “We lack a logical and solid parliamentary majority to govern,” say critics of Feijóo’s strategy.

As El Confidencial announced, the PP leader’s plan goes from the outset to achieve the King’s order to force an investiture in the last week of August. If, as everything indicates, it is unsuccessful -Feijóo needs an absolute majority-, a period of two months would automatically open to light a government majority.

In the event that no vote has prospered within that period, the Cortes would be dissolved and elections would be held at the end of the year, with the horizon set at December 17. PP parliamentary sources confirm that if they receive the green light in the Zarzuela, the session could be set for next week, on August 30 or 31.

In this case, it would be the new president of Congress, Francina Armengol, who must give the final go-ahead to Feijóo’s calendar. But the popular do not believe that the socialist leader put obstacles. “The more time passes, the more expensive Junts and ERC can make their support”, they trust.

In Ferraz, in fact, they confirmed this Monday that they will let Feijóo walk towards his “third setback” if he is chosen by the King. “We are not going to elbow each other,” added socialist sources.

Genoa insists that Feijóo will arrive at the meeting with the King with more support than Sánchez has, since he does not yet have the explicit support of the PNV, Junts or ERC. But the game could be more complicated for Feijóo due to the break with Vox.

Santiago Abascal will be the first of the leaders who will meet with Felipe VI this Tuesday, and the party has not yet confirmed whether it will convey to the monarch that its 33 deputies will support Feijóo if he is proposed or, on the contrary, avoid compromising that support.

At this time, Feijóo has 139 tied votes. Only with Sumar, Sánchez adds 152. If this scenario is confirmed, the option that Felipe VI chooses to delay the decision and repeat the round of consultations later would win integers.

Vox has made its support for Feijóo conditional on him “picking up the phone” and clarifying whether he “opts for the Murcia or Valencia route” in his relationship with Abascal. The ultra party has not forgiven the PP for leaving it out of the Congress Table, and demands “urgent explanations” before clarifying the meaning of its vote.

“If Feijóo wants to raise a sanitary cordon for Vox, he will not have our support,” warn sources close to Abascal. So far, Genoa has not given in to pressure and there have been no contacts between the two directions. They trust, however, that Abascal “keeps his word” and does not get out of the equation at a key moment.