Spanish elections: Pedro Sanchez could be in for a second term if he succeeds executive coalition quest

In Spain, the Popular Party won the early legislative elections on July 23 with 136 deputies in the lower house of the Spanish parliament, 47 seats more than in the November 2019 poll.

Although polls predicted a right-renaissance in this year’s Spanish election, it did not happen. Pedro Sanchez is likely to maintain his government position, initiated in 2018.

However, this victory does not guarantee the party a return to power after five years in opposition. The party, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo needs the support of 176 deputies to return to the presidency of the government.

The far-right Vox party took just 33 seats, down from 52 in 2019, while two other smaller parties, the Union of the People of Navarre and the Canarian Coalition, won just one deputy each.

The sum of the seats won by the four parties does not guarantee Feijóo’s appointment as Prime Minister.

Pedro Sanchez, on the other hand, has a good chance of extending his tenure at the Moncloa Palace by a few more years.

The PSOE came second with 122 deputies (two more than in 2019), but thanks to its allies (Sumar, 31, Catalan Republican Left, 7, Together for Catalonia, 7, Basque Nationalist Party, 5, EH. Bildu, 6, and the Galician Nationalist Bloc, 1) he could preside over a new left-wing coalition with Yolanda Diaz’s movement, as he did, in January 2020, with Pablo Iglesias’s Unidas-Podemos.

After 99% of the ballots had been counted, Pedro Sanchez came out to celebrate the “failure” of the right-wing bloc.

“We have more votes and more seats than four years ago,” he stated in an address last night from his party’s headquarters in Madrid.

Sanchez will need support from other parties to realize his dream of re-establishing a coalition government.

Catalonia’s Carles Puigdemont, claimant of Spanish justice is a key player in Sanchez’ plan, While Feijóo will find great difficulties in forming the government, if he announces the alliance with the far-right Vox, as it is expected that Sanchez will obstruct that for fears of weakening the minority government.

For her part, Sumar’s leader responded to Pedro Sanchez’s optimism, saying that “there were a lot of worried people and today they will sleep more serenely.”

In the upcoming days, King Felipe VI will entrust the PP leader with the task of forming a new government. If Alberto Feijóo is unable to muster the majority required by the constitution, e.i 176 deputies, the monarch will turn to Sanchez.