Spain legitimate his Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez

USPA NEWS - Socialist Party won the legislative elections celebrated on Sunday, April 28, 2019, in Spain. The Socialists won 123 seats in Congress, thus legitimizing the Prime Minister. Pedro Sanchez will continue in office, although this time with the support of 7,4 millions of Spaniards.

The Socialist Party almost doubled the result obtained by the conservatives of the Popular Party, which obtained the worst result in his history with 66 seats. The leader of the conservatives, Pablo Casado, justified the debacle of his party by the fragmentation of the right-wing vote, divided between the Popular Party, the centrist Citizens, which won 57 seats, and extreme right of Vox, which enters for te first time in Congress and achieved 24 seats.

But not only the conservative Popular Party, which went from having 137 deputies to the previous legislature to 66 of it, suffered a debacle. Also the extreme left represented in Podemos (Together we Can) lost 10 seats and remains with 42. At the time of the valuations, its leader, Pablo Iglesias, considered that, despite the loss of influence, his party remains “essential“ to form Government. In the same vein, Albert Rivera, leader of centrist Citizens, who was only nine seats away from the Popular Party, proclaimed himself leader of the opposition. Rivera highlighted the growth of his party and promised his voters that Citizens will govern Spain in the near future. And discarded to agree with the Socialists to form Government.

And the fact is the 123 Socialist deputies are not enough for Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez to govern alone. The most stable coalition would be the one formed by the Socialist Party and Citizens. Pedro Sanchez was open to negotiate with everyone, including the Catalan separatist parties and the Basque Nationalist Party PNV. The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC in its acronym in Catalan) doubled its deputies and achieved 15 seats, and Together for Catalonia (Junts per Catalunya) won seven seats, while Basque nationalists won six seats.

Absolute majority in the Senate

The debacle of the conservatives also resulted in the loss of their majority in the Senate, where the Socialist Party, with 121 seats, achieved absolute majority. The conservative Popular Party barely managed 55 seats and can no longer oppose any decision of the Government in relation to Catalonia or the State budget. ERC won 11 seats, the Basque nationalists and Citizens 4, among others.

The participationin the elections was 75.41%, the second highest in the recent Spanish democratic history. Abstention reached 24.59%.