The Strategist

Left-wing Unidas Podemos offers a coalition to Spanish socialists



04/29/2019 - 11:47



Leader of the left-wing coalition Unidas Podemos Pablo Iglesias told the current Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a member of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, about his desire to form a left-wing coalition government together with the socialists.



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Iglesias noted that his party expected a better result, but that’s enough to “stop the Righties”. He believes that negotiations on the coalition will last long. He called on Sanchez “not to succumb to the orange temptation,” referring to a possible agreement with the liberal Civic Party.

According to the election commission of Spain and results of the counting of 79.29% of votes, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party gets 123 seats in the Congress of Deputies, the center-right People's Party - 65 seats, the liberal Civic Party - 57 seats, the left coalition Unidas Podemos - 42 seats and the ultra right Party "Vox" - 24 seats.

Since none of the parties managed to gain an absolute majority of 176 seats, the leaders of the race, the socialists, will have to conduct coalition negotiations. However, it is still unclear with which parties the socialists will conduct coalition negotiations. Observers believe that the People’s Party is the most suitable ally to form a coalition with the socialists, but its leader Albert Rivera has so far rejected any possibility of a coalition.

The current election is arranged to define a new composition of the 350-local Congress of Deputies (the lower house of parliament) and 208 representatives of the 266-seat Senate (upper house of parliament). The term of office of elected representatives is four years. The decision to hold early elections was made after the Spanish parliament refused to endorse the budget plan for 2019 proposed by the government of the socialist Pedro Sanchez in mid-February.

source: reuters.com