MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish interim Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez appeared assured of a new mandate on Friday after securing the decisive support of two small regional parties, despite controversy over his proposed amnesty for Catalan separatists.
The announcement on Friday of the support of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the Canary Islands Coalition, after the commitment of the Catalan separatist party Junts per Catalunya on Thursday, theoretically allows the socialist leader to obtain an absolute majority in Parliament with 178 deputies out of a total of 350 during the investiture vote which will take place in the coming days.
“We managed to obtain a majority that will allow the inauguration of Pedro Sanchez and, therefore, we will have four years of government that will talk about what is really important for the people,” said the Acting Minister of Relations with the Parliament, Felix Bolanos, in an interview with radio Cadena Ser.
“We have very distant and different positions, but this agreement means that we are doing our best to understand each other. Spain and Catalonia deserve it,” he added.
The legislative elections of July 23 did not give an absolute majority to any political party. Arriving at the top of the vote, the conservatives of the Popular Party failed to form a coalition and Pedro Sanchez was tasked by King Felipe VI with trying in turn to form a majority.
The leader of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) spent weeks negotiating to obtain a majority, in particular with the left-wing Sumar alliance and the nationalist formations of Catalonia, the Basque Country and Galicia, which for the most part had supported during his previous mandate in early 2020.
But the agreement concluded Thursday with Junts, the formation of Carles Puigdemont, which includes the adoption of a law granting amnesty to activists and political leaders involved in the referendum on the independence of Catalonia of 2017, illegal in the eyes of Madrid, is strongly denounced by the right-wing and far-right opposition.
According to authorities, 24 people were arrested and seven police officers were lightly injured Thursday evening in Madrid as police tried to disperse demonstrators protesting in front of the PSOE headquarters.
Felix Bolanos said an amnesty law for Catalonia would help ease tensions in the northeastern region of Spain by canceling prosecutions against school principals, firefighters and civil servants who participated to the organization of the 2017 referendum.
Polls paint a picture of divided opinion on the subject of amnesty: in September, a Metroscopia survey showed that 70% of Spaniards – including 59% of socialist sympathizers – were opposed to it.
In mid-October, a poll for Channel 6 showed increased polarization: 50.8% of those questioned rejected the amnesty, 49% approved it.
(Reporting by Belen Carreno, Emma Pinedo and Inti Landauro, Diana Mandia for the French version, editing by Blandine Hénault and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)
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