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18-11-2023
MADRID: After weeks of haggling, Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez has clinched a vote in parliament to lead Spain for another term as prime minister.
He has secured a four-seat majority in the 350-seat chamber, after sealing an amnesty deal for Catalans involved in a failed bid to secede from Spain.
The conservative Popular Party won elections in July, but leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo failed to form a majority.
Sanchez told MPs that the amnesty deal would help “heal wounds”.
His reliance on two Catalan pro-independence parties to form a majority has infuriated opponents, who argue his proposed amnesty deal for hundreds of politicians and activists will trigger another bid for secession and threaten Spain’s territorial unity.
Socialist MPs applauded their leader for several minutes when the result of the vote was confirmed but MPs were booed by protesters as they filed out of the Spanish Congress building.
Last weekend tens of thousands of Spaniards took part in protests across Spain, and Feijoo has accused the prime minister of pursuing his own interests rather than his country’s.
The Popular Party leader shook his opponent’s hand after the vote but later declared to reporters: “I told the president of the government that this was a mistake but he is responsible for what he has just done.”
The Socialists were clearly in the hands of those who wanted “recognition of a nation different from that of Spain and a referendum for self-determination”, Feijoo declared.
Shortly before the vote, Sanchez linked attempts to question the legitimacy of his new government to part of a global trend. He referred to the presence of former Fox News TV anchor Tucker Carlson at a recent protest outside the Socialist Party headquarters in Madrid.
“We’ve seen it in the United States, in Brazil and other parts of the world where there is a political right and political far right who do not accept the result of elections,” he said.
Several Socialist members of parliament were chased and had eggs thrown at them as they left a cafe near Congress. One egg hit MP Herminio Sánchez and delegates were advised to look after their personal safety in light of the febrile political atmosphere. (Int’l News Desk)
