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Rajoy interview shows Spain no closer to forming gov't

Xinhua, January 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy gave an interview to national TV network RTVE on Wednesday in which he made it clear he was no closer to being able to form a government than he was directly after the Dec. 20 general elections.

Rajoy's People's Party (PP) 'won' that election but lost 30 percent of its votes and saw its representation in Congress fall to 123 seats, well below the 175 needed for an overall majority.

In discussions with King Felipe VI Friday last week, Rajoy said he currently didn't have the necessary support to form a government, but said he had not withdrawn his candidacy to become prime minister, and insisted on the need for a three-way pact between his party, the Socialists (PSOE) and the center-right Citizens party.

However, on Wednesday, he said he had not held discussions with Socialist Leader, Pedro Sanchez, saying their only meeting "lasted five minutes... He came and went... he didn't want to talk to me." Rajoy nevertheless insisted it was "impossible," for the PP to govern without "some kind of understanding with the PSOE."

The other option to a PP-PSOE-Citizens coalition would be a government formed by the PSOE, Podemos and various nationalist groups in Congress, something Rajoy admitted was theoretically possible, but "would be a catastrophe."

He also ruled out his party abstaining in order to allow the PSOE, who won 90 seats in December, to form a government and admitted that new elections were the third option in the Spanish political scenario.

Rajoy was asked about the latest corruption cases to hit his party after Tuesday saw several high-ranking members of the PP in Valencia arrested in relation to a cash-for-favors investigation, while the party itself has been indicted for wiping information from the hard drives used by former party treasurer Luis Barcenas.

"I don't know exactly if the PP is a suspect, I don't know exactly what is going on," he replied, before highlighting action his government had taken to try and stamp out corruption. Endit