Tue, Apr 30, 2019 page1

• Spanish Socialists weigh options after election win

  • Reuters, MADRID
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  Spain’s ruling Socialists were yesterday weighing options for forming a new government after they emerged as the biggest party, but fell short of a majority following a national election that produced a deeply fragmented parliament.

  Playing down talk of possible coalition options, Spanish Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said that the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) would try to govern alone, while party president Cristina Narbona said it was in no hurry to decide.

  “The Socialists will try to govern on their own,” Calvo said in an interview on Cadena Ser radio. “We have more than enough [votes] to steer this ship along the course it must follow.”

  

  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, center, speaks to supporters at the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party headquarters in Madrid, Spain, on Sunday.

  Photo: Bloomberg

  Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, whose party celebrated into the small hours after increasing their representation in Sunday’s election to 123 seats from 84, declined to comment ahead of a strategy meeting yesterday afternoon.

  If he does seek a coalition partner, he could opt for a complex alliance with fellow leftists Podemos that would likely require support from at least one Catalan separatist lawmaker, or he could risk upsetting his grassroots supporters by joining forces across the political divide with center-right Ciudadanos.

  Any coalition talks could take weeks or months and might end in deadlock, plunging Europe’s fifth-largest economy into a new period of uncertainty as the continent wrestles with the complexities of Brexit and other challenges.

  Concerns at home and abroad that Vox, a newcomer far-right party, would gain a share of power unprecedented since Spain’s return to democracy in the 1970s failed to materialize. It won 24 seats, fewer than expected, and split the right-wing vote.

  For many observers, the Podemos option appears Sanchez’s likelier path, even with the two parties 11 seats short of a majority. Podemos Secretary-General Pablo Iglesais said he would happily enter a coalition.

  “The chances of [Sanchez] getting a government [with Podemos are] at 90 percent, or better, but the chances of him passing the budget are 40:60,” IESE business school economics professor Javier Diaz-Gimenez said.

  Madrid’s Carlos III University political science professor Pablo Simon said he expected no deal on a government before next month’s European Parliament elections.

  Vox, the first party of that political hue to sit in parliament in significant numbers since late dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975, splintered the right-wing vote to leave the mainstream conservative People’s Party (PP) languishing on just 66 seats, its worst result since the early 1980s.

  The PP, along with the Socialists, had dominated the political landscape since Franco’s death.

  “It’s clear that the fragmentation of the right has hurt the PP most, and it has paid the price for its corruption scandals,” ONEtoONE investment bank chief executive Enrique Quemada said.

  Sanchez took office in June last year after the then-governing PP lost a confidence vote called over the involvement of party members in corruption.

  He called Sunday’s election when his budget failed to get through parliament after Catalan separatists refused to back it.

  If Sanchez teams up with Podemos, he would probably also need to cut another deal with the Catalans to secure an absolute majority.

  While Sanchez has ruled out any negotiations on Catalan independence, any deal with the separatists would rake over the coals of the most divisive topic of an often tense election campaign that was dominated by issues of national identity.
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