After the general elections on July 23, Pedro Sánchez repeatedly expressed his determination to form a new progressive government “as soon as possible.” “I can’t say when, but I’m going to fight with all my might,” he promised.
And his team insists that, until Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s second attempt fails as planned this Friday, the time for the investiture of the leader of the Popular Party remains open. “On Friday, Feijóo’s funeral ceremonies will begin,” says a leader ironically.
But the socialists admit that the schedule for Sánchez to run for his own re-election remains uncertain, once the King instructs him, and he accepts, to seek sufficient support for the investiture.
At Moncloa they warn that they will not waste a minute to achieve it, in contrast to the “sterile time” that Feijóo demanded to face an investiture doomed to failure from the beginning. “Every day that passes will be one less day for the candidate,” they urge. So the socialists plan to open a round of formal contacts with the representatives of the parliamentary groups, once Felipe VI designates Sánchez as a candidate.
But in the Moncloa and in the leadership of the PSOE they also recognize that it is not yet possible to set possible deadlines to close the possible agreements to form a new majority for the investiture or to set in advance a date for the new investiture debate. “Slowly, it doesn’t depend only on us,” they argue.
Although some leaders are confident that Sánchez’s investiture debate could be held in October, others do not rule out that, given the complexity of the negotiation effort with Junts and Esquerra, the deadlines will have to be exhausted. November 27 is the deadline, before the Cortes are dissolved and a repeat of the elections is called, after this Wednesday Congress held the first vote on the failed investiture of the PP leader.
“We have two months to transform those 178 noes to Feijóo into 178 yeses to Sánchez, and we are going to work on that,” they say in the leadership of the PSOE.
In addition to the votes of the Socialist Group (121), Sumar (31), Esquerra (7), Junts (7), EH Bildu (6), the PNV (5) and the BNG (1), which this Wednesday rejected the investiture of Feijóo in the first vote, and which are scheduled to be reissued in the second vote on Friday, the PSOE contemplates that even the Canarian Coalition deputy, Cristina Valido, can raise the majority of Sánchez’s investiture to 179 seats. The same majority that last week approved the use of all co-official languages ??in Congress.
Meanwhile, the socialists celebrate Feijóo’s failure in the first vote of his investiture, which once again set his voting ceiling in Congress at 172 seats. And they interpret their interventions before their bench, and before the rest of the parliamentary groups, in terms of mere “personal survival” at the head of the PP, closing all the doors, they highlight, except that of the far-right of Vox.
“Feijóo has not made a single friend more than those he already has in his ranks in these two days of his failed investiture because he has dedicated himself to insulting all the groups that do not support him. And he leaves here as he arrived: as leader of the opposition, nothing more,” concluded the socialist Patxi López.
