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Spanish speaker presents king with list of party leaders willing to attend meetings

Xinhua, April 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Speaker of the Spanish Congress Patxi Lopez presented King Felipe VI of Spain with a list of party leaders who are willing to attend talks next week to try and end the political stalemate in Spain.

Felipe will hold talks with leaders of all parties in Congress, with the exception of Basque nationalist party Bildu and the Catalan nationalists Republican Left (ERC), on April 25 and 26 in a last ditch attempt to avoid another general election.

It will be the third round of talks he has held in the wake of the Dec. 20 general election which left Spain with a hung parliament.

The December election saw the People's Party (PP) win 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress, ahead of the 90 won by the Socialist Party (PSOE), 69 by Podemos (under various regional names), 40 by the center-right Citizens (Ciudadanos) with six other parties taking the remaining seats.

PP leader and Acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rejected the king's post-election offer to try and form a government, saying he did not have enough support. Socialist Pedro Sanchez attempted to form a coalition with the support of Citizens, but his attempt was blocked after he was defeated in two investiture votes at the start of March.

Since then, talks between the Socialists, Citizens and Podemos have failed while the Socialists rejected Rajoy's offer of a broad-based coalition with himself as prime minister. Thursday saw Citizens' leader Albert Rivera suggesting a three-party coalition with an independent as prime minister.

If no agreement is reached by midnight on May 2, Congress will be dissolved and new elections held on June 26. Polls show election results are likely to be similar to those of Dec. 20. Enditem