The constitutional machinery was launched this Monday for a new investiture attempt. After the failure of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who did not obtain the necessary votes last week, the King has opened the second round of consultations with the representatives of the parties in the Zarzuela, which will last until tomorrow, Tuesday.
Everything indicates that, once the consultations are over, the head of state will designate a new candidate for the acting president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez. To gauge support for his candidacy, he has begun to receive the parties in Zarzuela in order from least to greatest representation in Congress, starting with UPN and ending with the PP. However, Felipe VI will not be able to sound out four of the PSOE leader’s possible parliamentary allies, since ERC, Junts, EH Bildu and the BNG have once again refused to attend these meetings.
The round that the head of state has opened is the second after the general elections of 23-J. As already happened in the first round that was held on August 21 and 22, there are seven political formations that will meet the King and that have already begun to pass through the Zarzuela.
The first to attend was the president of the Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN), Javier Esparza, at 11, followed by the deputy of the Canary Coalition (CC), Cristina Valido, at 12, and the parliamentary spokesperson of the PNV, Aitor Esteban, at 1:00 p.m. In the afternoon, at 4:30 p.m., the second vice president of the acting Government and leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, is summoned, and an hour later, the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal.
The round will be closed on Tuesday morning by Sánchez and Núñez Feijóo. To obtain the investiture, the candidate needs the support of the absolute majority of Congress (176 of the 350 deputies), in a first vote, and a simple majority (more votes in favor than against) in a second vote. Sánchez has the 121 seats of the PSOE and the 31 of Sumar, which have guaranteed his support. Therefore, the votes of ERC (7), Junts (7), EH Bildu (5), PNV (5) and BNG (1) will be decisive.
In his meeting with the King, Esparza told him that he will not support the investiture of Pedro Sánchez, as reported by the UPN spokesperson in Congress at the end of the meeting. The PSOE will not have the votes of the PP or Vox either. However, they are not throwing in the towel with CC, despite the fact that her only deputy gave her vote in favor of Feijóo last week.
Regarding possible support for Sánchez, the CC deputy, Silvia Valido, assured at the end of the meeting with the King that for now there is no agreement with the PSOE. “Our predisposition is to talk. Don’t go any further,” she warned at her appearance. “We are going to see if the PSOE accepts what we ask, to have information about the approaches it has, its negotiations and to be able to talk. From there, it is all speculation. Let’s wait for a step in favor of a negotiation to be able to position ourselves in the scenario that the PSOE proposes”, he assured.
Valido has also referred to the red line that CC drew in the campaign regarding Vox and Sumar, and has assured that now there are no red lines until the PSOE is spoken to: “We told our voters that we would not be in governments with the extreme right and the extreme left. We have also already said that we do not share the amnesty. We will see what is offered and what is willing to accept.”
As already happened with Feijóo, Sánchez attends the meeting with Felipe VI without having guaranteed support. The PP had them but they were insufficient. In the case of the leader of the PSOE, the head of state will not be able to sound out some of his allies. ERC and Bildu have not attended the consultations in Zarzuela since 2016. In 2019, the BNG did not attend either. And with regard to Junts, the change has occurred since 23-J, when its leader in Congress, Míriam Nogueras, has declined to meet with the head of State, since until the last legislature they had attended. to these interviews.
However, what is foreseeable is that the King will apply the same criteria as with Feijóo, whom he designated first as head of the PP list, the option with the most votes on 23-J. The PSOE was second and its leader wants to try for investiture.
To set the legal context, article 99 of the Constitution, which regulates the consultations that the head of State must carry out, does not establish any criteria for appointing a candidate and does not set a deadline for doing so nor does it limit consultations with the parties.
And one last piece of information, this one more political. This is the tenth time that Felipe VI has summoned political leaders in the nine years that he has been on the throne. It is the same number of rounds that his father, Juan Carlos I, starred in in his almost 39-year reign. The explanation must be sought in the changes in the Spanish political map since the general elections of December 2015, when new formations gained electoral strength and marked the end of the two-party system that for years had marked the alternations in the Moncloa.
If Felipe VI designates Sánchez as a candidate, he would have until November 27 to try to make his investiture successful. It is two months after the first failed investiture vote of Núñez Feijóo, as established by the Constitution. If the PSOE leader fails, the general elections would be repeated.
