There are not two without three, says the popular saying. And this is what can happen this year, as it already happened in the general elections of December 2015 and April 2019. After yesterday’s elections, in which neither the bloc of the right (PP, Vox, UPN) nor that of the left (PSOE, Sumar), with their usual allies, reached an absolute majority of 176 seats, the specter of electoral repetition is gaining strength.
According to article 99 of the Constitution, after each renewal of the Congress of Deputies, which will effectively take place on August 17 with the constitution of the Cortes Generales, the King, after consulting with the parliamentary groups, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the Government, who must submit to the investiture. If in a first vote in the Lower House, the candidate does not obtain an absolute majority, he will submit to a new vote 48 hours later in which he could be worth a simple majority to be elected, that is, more yes than no. If the investiture failed, this process could be repeated over time and with different candidates, but after two months from the first vote, if no candidate obtained the confidence of Congress, the Cortes would be automatically dissolved and new elections would be called within 54 days.
The general elections of December 2015, which led to the entry into the Congress of Podemos y Ciudadanos, drew a scenario in which neither Mariano Rajoy nor Pedro Sánchez achieved sufficient support to be invested. In fact, the winner of the elections, the then president and leader of the PP, refused to submit to the investiture and it was the general secretary of the PSOE who started the clock so that new elections could be called, which were held on June 26, 2016.
After those elections, the situation of blockade persisted despite the fact that Rajoy improved his records, which led to the removal of Pedro Sánchez, the main champion of the “no is no” to allow the investiture of the popular leader, in the federal committee of the PSOE on October 1, 2016. Four weeks later, Rajoy achieved the investiture with the abstention of a large part of the socialist deputies.
But seven months later, Sánchez regained the leadership of the PSOE, and a year later he managed to enter Moncloa via a motion of no confidence after the ruling in the Gürtel case that affected the PP, and created a one-color government that lasted barely nine months. In February 2019, ERC rejected the budgets of the socialist executive and the leader of the PSOE called elections for April of that year.
Sánchez defeated Pablo Casado in an election in which Ciudadanos almost caught the PP and Vox stormed in with force. Sánchez appeared for the investiture in July but without reaching an agreement with the then leader of United We Can Pablo Iglesias. The investiture did not prosper and time passed until automatic elections were called for November 10. Despite losing support, two days later Sánchez and Iglesias announced the first coalition government in the history of Spain.
