Pablo Iglesias pushed the bucket | He resigned to form …

Page 12 in Spain

From Madrid

With less than four days of Pedro Sanchez's first nomination as Spanish Prime Minister, Pablo Iglesias resigned to a high position in the Council of Ministers and opened negotiations between the Spanish Socialist Workers Party ( PSOE). and United Podemos (UP) to form the next executive. "Spain already needs a left-wing coalition government that badumes that social rights must be the axis of government." The PSOE says the only hurdle preventing this government is me. think for a few days and I will not be the pretext to avoid this coalition government, "said Iglesias on his social networks yesterday afternoon.

The announcement comes at the end of a week during which relations between Sánchez and Iglesias reached their worst moment in more than a year. Since the UP leader has supported the PSOE's censure motion, chaired by Pedro Sanchez, aimed at replacing the former prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, last June, the link between the two leaders of left did not improve. During the ten months that the Socialist leader has ruled before calling elections, the PSOE and the UP have agreed on measures with a significant impact, such as the increase of the interprofessional minimum wage. However, after the general and municipal and autonomous elections, Sanchez and Iglesias moved away from differences over a possible government agreement to form a parliamentary majority that would have managed to maintain an executive led by Sanchez.

While the head of the PSOE originally proposed a monochrome cabinet, Iglesias claimed for UP a space proportional to the number of votes and seats obtained. At the first meeting following the May 26 elections, the interim president met with the purple leader, and the rest of the meeting allowed a government of cooperation to hear, according to the PSOE, and to a coalition according to: UP. Over the days, this semantic nuance has been transformed into an insurmountable difference that has brought the negotiations to the private sphere of the rulers and brought them back to the slippery territory of the media, where a bad word could open structural cracks. Something that eventually happened.

Sánchez had proposed in recent days to Iglesias to propose "technical" candidates to join a possible Council of Ministers. A subtle way to veto the involvement of political cadres, such as Pablo Iglesias himself. For the secretary general of the UP, the proposal was "silly" because people vote for political figures and not for technical profiles.

In the ranks of socialism, the rhetoric has not changed in recent weeks about a coalition government. They insist that the divergence of visions between the PSOE and the UP regarding issues of state such as the claim of sovereignty of Catalonia and the judicial situation of the Catalan leaders who promoted the illegal referendum of 2017 can not be approached in a partial way by the Spanish government "We can defend the right to self-determination (of Catalonia), they were opposed to the application of Article 155 of the Constitution ( intervention by the Catalan government), they talk about political prisoners, "said Sanchez in an interview this week. To contain this essential divergence, the purple leader said that in strategic areas such as Catalonia would be subordinated to the president's line. However, this statement had no effect on the president's environment.

Earlier this week, when positions seemed too far apart, Iglesias made the decision to hold a telematic consultation among UP activists in order to publicize their position regarding the entry in the government of Sanchez or stay out of a programmatic agreement in which the PSOE only designed the government. Sanchez's reaction was to clbadify the consultation as a "grand charade" because he felt that the issues were guiding the militancy to support the UP boss. In this context, the vote of investiture became increasingly black. In the absence of abstentions of the right-wing parties and the refusal of UP to support Sánchez without entering the government, the Spanish political parties have already considered the possibility of a new appeal to general elections for the month of November.

Now, the turn given by Iglesias opens a new opportunity for understanding. It will not be easy. In his announcement of yesterday, Iglesias warned that he would not be part of the Council of Ministers, but that the condition of support was that UP would get in the future government a proportional share of the votes it would got in the elections. About four million votes and forty-two deputies are essential for the 123 of the PSOE to form an absolute majority of 176 votes, the minimum necessary to invest in Sanchez. On Tuesday, we will know if the agreement has been reached. Meanwhile, the countdown has already begun.