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Socialist Patxi Lopez to be speaker of Spanish Congress

Xinhua, January 13, 2016 Adjust font size:

Experienced Socialist Party (PSOE) politician Patxi Lopez will be the next speaker in the Spanish Congress (Presidente del Congreso) after his party and center-right group Citizens (Ciudadanos) reached an agreement to vote for him when congress sits for the first time on Wednesday following the Dec. 20 general election.

The People's Party (PP) agreed not to present a candidate and have accepted two deputy speaker positions as their part of the agreement, it was confirmed on Tuesday evening.

Lopez, who was the Premier of the Basque Region between 2009-2012, is a respected politician with experience in building a political consensus in a difficult political climate, which is exactly what Spain is facing now with no party able to form a majority government.

Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy confirmed Lopez would be the next Speaker when he spoke to the press following a meeting of the PP Executive Committee.

Rajoy said his party, which "won" the elections with 123 seats while falling short of the 175 seats needed for an overall majority, was "willing to speak to the political parties which share the basic constitutional principles" in order to find an agreement to form a "wide-ranging government."

However, he insisted that as the party which won the most votes on Dec. 20, the PP would head that government in order to ensure the "major reforms Spain needs for the coming years" were passed.

He also criticized Socialist Party leader Pedro Sanchez, who on Monday repeated that the Socialists would not form a pact with the PP.

Rajoy insisted that the Socialists did not have the support in either congress or the senate to approve the reform of the Spanish Constitution which Sanchez insists is vital to deal with the growing issue of Catalan independence. Endit