King Felipe VI of Spain on Tuesday proposed the leader of centre-right Partido Popular (PP/EPP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as a candidate for the investiture as new prime minister even though his conservative formation did not gather sufficient votes to reach the majority required in Parliament.
Feijóo’s PP won the snap general election held on 23 July in the Iberian country, but his party, the main opposition force, fell short of the absolute majority (176 seats in a Parliament of 350).
The leader of PP can count on 172 votes, including the parliamentary support of the far-right VOX party, centre-right Unión del Pueblo Navarro (UPN) and Coalición Canaria, but these are not sufficient to reach the goal, EURACTIV´s partner EFE reported.
On Tuesday evening, Núñez Feijóo thanked King Felipe VI for his decision to propose him as a candidate for the investiture and stressed that he would defend change, stability, and political “moderation”.
“We will give a voice to the more than 11 million citizens who want change, stability and moderation with a government that defends the equality of all Spaniards”, Feijóo wrote on his X account (former Twitter).
Spain’s Royal House explained in a press release that the King’s decision to propose Núñez Feijóo as a candidate despite not having a sufficient majority for his investiture is in keeping with the “custom” of proposing the candidate who has obtained the most seats in the general elections.
The King, as outlined in the Spanish Constitution, began on Monday a round of consultations to determine which of the two main candidates for the investiture, Núñez Feijóo and the acting prime minister and socialist leader, Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D), could receive enough votes to become the country’s new head of the executive.
Both Sánchez and Núñez Feijóo expressed on Tuesday before the Spanish monarch their willingness to be candidates.
Sánchez told the monarch that his party “is in a position to gather the required parliamentary backing” to form a new progressive coalition of the PSOE and the progressive bloc Sumar.
However, the King opted to propose the candidate with the most support at present, as Sánchez has only secured 152 seats (PSOE and Sumar) and still needs to forge complex alliances with several regional forces, among them Catalan pro-independence Junts per Catalunya (JuntsXCat, Together for Catalonia) of former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, who has already set several “red lines”.
On Tuesday evening, the speaker of the Spanish Parliament, Francina Armengol (PSOE/S&D), announced the monarch’s decision once the round of consultations had ended, in which Felipe VI listened to the positions of UPN, Coalición Canaria, Basque nationalist PNV, the progressive bloc Sumar, Vox, PSOE and Partido Popular.
“Mr. Feijóo is leading all Spanish citizens to an investiture that everyone knows will fail”, Sumar sources lamented.
If neither candidate manages to be sworn in as the new prime minister, Spain would probably hold new elections in early December, a few days before the end of the Spanish presidency of the EU Council.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)
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