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Rajoy looks for post-election coalition with unwilling Socialists

Xinhua, June 27, 2016 Adjust font size:

Spanish People's Party (PP) leader Mariano Rajoy said Monday that he intends to speak to the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) to try and persuade them to allow him to form a government.

Rajoy's Peoples Party won Sunday's general election in Spain with 137 seats, an improvement on their showing six months ago, but still well short of the 176 he needs for a majority in the 350 seat Congress.

A pact with center-right Ciudadanos, who won 32 seats, would still leave Rajoy needing seven seats for that majority, but the support of the PSOE and their 85 seats would immediately solve his problems.

"I am going to try to secure the investiture vote with the support of the Socialists so as to secure approval of the 2017 budget," said Rajoy in an interview with radio station, Cadena Cope, on Monday morning.

"I'm not ruling anything out, but for the key issues such as Europe or managing Brexit, I will need the support of the PSOE," he explained.

Rajoy said he had spoken to PSOE leader, Pedro Sanchez, in the wake of his election win and that Sanchez had told him the pair, "needed to talk, but we didn't go into any details because it wasn't the right moment."

However, declarations from the Socialist camp on Monday show the PSOE to be hostile to supporting a Rajoy government.

Cesar Luena, the PSOE Organizational Secretary told radio station, Cadena Ser, that the Socialists were "not going to support Rajoy either through action or through omission."

"The votes we have received with in order to change their unjust policies," he continued, saying the PSOE's aim was "to replace Rajoy."

If he is unable to persuade to PSOE to allow his investiture, Rajoy could try to form a pact with either Catalan or Basque nationalist groups, but given his poor relationships with the Catalans, that looks virtually impossible, while the moderate Basque nationalist party (PNV) would also be unlikely to back a man they view as hostile to their cause, especially ahead of regional elections in the Basque area in October. Endit