Spain moves closer toward forming gov't as King announces new round of talks

Spain moved a step closer to the formation of a government on Tuesday when the Spanish Royal Household confirmed that King Felipe VI will hold a new round of talks with the leaders of the country's political parties on Oct. 24-25.

These talks will establish whether acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will be able to form a government to end the ten-month deadlock that has left Spain in political limbo since the December 2015 general election.

A second election held on June 26 failed to end the stalemate and unless a new prime minister can be confirmed by Oct. 31, the Congress will be dissolved and a third election called.

The political situation has changed since Rajoy failed in his first bid to win an investiture vote in the Spanish Congress on Aug. 31 as internal divisions saw Pedro Sanchez resign as the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) on Oct. 1.

Although the Socialists have to agree whether or not they will now abstain to allow Rajoy to govern, Javier Fernandez, president of the Management Committee placed in charge of party affairs after Sanchez's resignation, has implied on several occasions that this will be party policy. However, the PSOE have still to agree on this policy in a meeting of their Federal Committee on a date yet to be confirmed and some members continue to insist they will vote against Rajoy no matter what the Federal Committee decides.

The Spanish Constitution states that in order to form a government, a candidate needs to win an overall majority in the first investiture vote or a simple majority in a second vote held two days later.

Given that the PSOE would abstain rather than support Rajoy, that means the People's Party leader could only be elected as Prime Minister following a second vote, so the first debate would need to be held on Oct. 26 or 27 in order to allow enough time to fulfil Spain's electoral law. Endit