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People's Party to meet as coalition gov't in Spain continues to look difficult

Xinhua, January 12, 2016 Adjust font size:

Party heavyweights of Mariano Rajoy's People's Party (PP) met here on Tuesday to decide which of its candidates will preside over the new Spanish Congress and Senate.

The meeting comes in a continued climate of political uncertainty in the country following the result of the Dec. 20 general election which saw the PP remain the most voted-for party, but lose their overall majority, winning only 123 seats of the 350-seat Congress.

The meeting also falls a day before the newly-elected deputies are due to take their seats for the first time since the election.

One of the first bones of contention will be who presides over the Congress. The PP considers they have the right to do so, given they won the most seats in the general election (123, compared to 90 for the Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), 69 for Podemos, and 40 for Citizens.

However, the PSOE also hope to control this post and PSOE leader, Pedro Sanchez, has proposed Patxi Lopez, the former president of the Basque region, because of his "capacity for dialogue and institutional experience."

This move is supported by Citizens' leader Albert Rivera, who also favors the President of the Congress coming from a party which is not in government. Whether or not the PP would accept this could be an important compromise towards the formation of a three-party coalition government.

Meanwhile, the situation in Catalonia has given a new urgency to discussions to form a united coalition government in Madrid. The new regional President of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, was sworn in on Sunday, promising independence within 18 months after reaching an agreement between pro-independence groups Junts pel Si and CUP.

Although Sanchez insisted he will not allow "anything outside of the law," to happen in the Catalan region, he continues to reject a pact with the PP, insisting in a radio interview on Cadena Ser on Tuesday morning that "four more years with Rajoy in government will not give any kind of solution and will only make the confrontation worse."

"It is more important than ever to have a change in Spain and to open up a new age of reform, of dialogue and negotiation and to find a new agreement which will end this conflict once and for all," he said, referring to agreements between Catalan nationalists. Endit