The interview between the candidate to whom the King entrusted the task of trying to form a Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóoand the one who arithmetically has some possibility of forming a parliamentary majority, Pedro SanchezIt ended as expected. No results and without any possibility of agreement being glimpsed between the two. However, it did include a surprise in the script, the proposal of the president of the Popular Party to ask Sánchez for his vote for the investiture at the head of a Government for a legislature of only two years, with the task of executing a series of agreed reforms between the two formations in the form of six state pacts.
A proposal of this type is only one step away (that of sharing the table of the Council of Ministers, instead of the monocolor government proposed) from the formation of a grand coalition. It is a formula as unprecedented in the history of Spanish democracy as unfeasible without preconditions that are far from being met. An emergency solution of this type is only credible in the absence of a viable alternative majority or the imminence of a situation that is little less than an emergency, something that does not seem to be on the horizon despite the fact that the PP’s discourse outlines the negotiations with the independentistas as an existential danger for Spain. It’s unlikely too without a climate of understanding necessary, to begin with, to trust the promise to call elections within two years. And it is not imaginable after a campaign in which there was a clamor to repeal all the work of the Government from whom the vote is now being asked; perhaps after new elections in which another attitude is exposed to the electorate, yes, but Not now.
However, the good words of Feijóo should not be disdained when he stated that one day the confrontation between the two big parties should be overcome leading to a “with me or against me” policy. Although in order to make these good intentions more credible, it would help if this attitude had been shown from their ranks on issues such as, for example, the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary.
Since he began his round of contacts Feijóo has not advanced a step in his almost impossible intention to be invested, when it has remained stagnant with the insufficient support of 172 deputies. It remains more feasible (as well as uncertain) the formation of a majority around the PSOE and Sumar, with support that goes from constitutionalist nationalism to pro-independence. Although continuity in the Executive can be expected at most from this circumstantial pact, avoiding the still non-ruleable electoral repetition and perhaps a new step in cooling the embers of the ‘procés’. But it cannot be trusted to facilitate any type of reform of the State structures, impossible without the reconstruction of bridges and agreements with the PP.
For the socialist party, dragging this situation up to the date of September 27 gives it time to tie up a complex negotiation and serves to expose Feijóo’s impotence for weeks, unless proven otherwise. But that does not necessarily mean that it is good for the country. If the investiture of the leader of the PP proves impossible, it makes no sense to prolong this ‘impasse’ and prolong the provisional period for more than is necessary in which we find ourselves.