Socialism announced that it wanted to govern Spain without coalitions

After a brilliant victory in the parliamentary elections in Spain, Pedro Sanchez's Socialist Party (PSOE) announced yesterday its intention to govern alone, while United Podemos asked to form a progressive coalition.

"There is more than enough support to run this ship," said interim vice president Carmen Calvo, adding that her party wanted to form a monochrome and progressive executive.

"We think we can continue to move forward with this formula that we started," said the Socialist, who recalled that her party already governed with 85 deputies, and that she can now do it with 123, a number much more important.

After hearing the election results, United Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, whose party coalition won 42 seats – a significant step back from the 71 he held – turned to Sánchez for his election. to use in progressive coalition government.

Force and weakness

Iglesias remained in a position of weakness, but the seats of his party are indispensable for Sanchez to remain at the helm of La Moncloa.

Despite this, the Psoe does not intend to integrate Podemos Podemos into the executive, although it intends to negotiate an investiture agreement and continue to receive its parliamentary support, which up to now has been essential.

The PSOE's organizational secretary, José Luis Ábalos, reminded that adding to Podemos the power in a coalition government is not enough to obtain the absolute majority.

The PSOE believes it has access to an inauguration agreement with Unidas Podemos, but it would remain eleven seats of the absolute majority. It will require pacts with Basque nationalists and other minority parties to form a government.

calculations

One of the reasons for the rejection of a coalition is precisely that some of these parties, such as the PNV or the Canary Coalition, do not look forward to it, but they would be ready to lend their support to the coalition. Investiture of Sanchez.

To be reelected, Sánchez must obtain an absolute majority in the first vote of the investiture of the Congress of Deputies, which would be possible only if he became a separatist, Basque or Catalan. However, during a second vote, the Socialist leader could be vested with all the regional parties, without the Catalan secessionists, if he got a single abstention.

You can also start negotiations with the Catalan separatists of Republican Esquerra de Catalunya (ERC), whose leader, Oriol Junqueras, was already willing to speak from prison.

Secessionist abstention is difficult, but this is not an impossible mission, and Psoe and ERC are both encouraged to accept.

While the PSOE says that it "will not come in there", ERC has already put its conditions on the table.

"We are proposing a table of dialogue and negotiation, a referendum and legislative initiatives to prosecute our comrades," said Gabriel Rufián, number two of the party that won first place in Catalonia.

Meanwhile, the possibility of concluding a pact with Ciudadanos, to which the PSOE would add an absolute majority, was virtually ruled out after Inés Arrimadas, the leader in Catalonia, insisted yesterday that her party be "the only one in the world". "governmental alternative" in which the PSOE can not claim to agree with them after having "sold" Catalonia to secessionists.

The citizens' strategy is to lead the opposition, said Arrimadas, who made it clear that there would be no negotiations to form a government or an investiture. "

On the evening of the elections, the activist asked Sánchez not to negotiate with Ciudadanos with the shout of "¡Con Rivera, no!". And he rejected it. That would make him lose the left space that he had won against United Podemos.