Pedro Sanchéz Confirmed Spain’s Prime Minister

Pedro Sanchéz, Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), has been confirmed for another term as Spain’s Prime Minister after a four-month deadlock.

The parliamentary vote that confirms him as Prime Minister comes almost six months after Sanchéz himself announced the dissolution of parliament and a July snap election. The then-Prime Minister made the decision following the poor results of the coalition he led in regional elections. However, the snap election result made forming a new government a challenge as none of the parties or viable coalitions had enough seats.

While Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s conservative People’s Party (PP) won the most votes at the elections, it still fell short of the majority required to form a government. Despite two attempts and a coalition with far-right party Vox, Feijóo was unable to gather enough seats to form a new government. Pedro Sanchéz was then given the task of forming a government coalition.

Creating that coalition was far from simple, and proved extremely controversial. In order to win the much-needed support of independentist Catalonian party Together for Catalonia, Sanchéz offered an amnesty for those who took part to the organisation of the 2017 Catalan independence referendum. The attempt at breaking away from Madrid was deemed illegal by Spanish courts, and Catalan separatists were prosecuted.

A Controversial Amnesty

The amnesty would most notably apply to Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Together for Catalonia, who has lived in Belgium since 2017 while fighting extradition to Spain. With the agreement finalised and registered in parliament on Monday, Sanchéz had enough support needed to be voted into office once again.

Ahead of the vote that confirmed him as Prime Minister, Sanchéz wrote, “I want to address all the groups that will give me their support today to renew as president and form a new coalition government. To the 179 deputies who have committed their vote and who represent more than 12.6 million citizens who on July 23 decided to continue, move forward instead of going backwards. Moitas grazas. Moltes gràcies. Eskerrik Asko. Muchas gracias.”

Catalan MP Miriam Nogueras commented, “The conditions for negotiating were clear: independence had to be excluded from the intelligence directive where it was equated with terrorism, it had to stop being linked to Europol, and an amnesty law was needed. It has been done.”

Opposition parties, as well as parts of the Spanish judicial system, harshly criticised the amnesty. For the past two weeks, protests were held nightly in front of the PSOE’s national headquarters in Madrid. The European People’s Party (EPP) said on Thursday that the European Parliament approved its request for a debate on whether the amnesty threatens Spain’s judicial independence.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who announced he would promote a new law against ‘constitutional disloyalty’, commented, “I am committed to the Spanish people to reverse the damage caused to our coexistence and our democracy by the ambition of Pedro Sánchez.”

He added, “I will lead the opposition defending the equality of all Spaniards and against the greatest attack on the rule of law.  History will not give him amnesty.”