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.”
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.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS