Election day this Sunday will launch an administrative and institutional process aimed at renew two of the three powers of the Rule of Law: the Legislative (General Courts) and the Executive (Government). The new Chambers will be constituted on August 17 and, from there, the King will enter the game, which will open a consultation round with the parliamentary spokesmen in search of the candidate for the investiture.
Not all deadlines are regulated, but these are the key dates of this transit:
– July 23th: At 8:00 p.m. the polling stations are closed and the envelopes of the voters by mail and those of the members of the polling station are placed in the ballot boxes. Then the counting of the ballots begins, which is public. The figures are collected in a report that is sent to the Interior and around 10:00 p.m. general data will be known with a high level of scrutiny.
– 28 of July: The general scrutiny begins in the provincial electoral boards, which have until Monday the 31st to complete their work. It is a public recount where the foreign votes of those registered in the Electoral Census of Absent Residents (CERA) are already included.
– As of August 8, once all the appeals have been resolved, the results will be proclaimed and the electoral boards will issue the credentials so that the deputies and senators can appear in Congress and the Senate to be accredited. The parade of the new parliamentarians to do the ‘paperwork’ is expected from Thursday, August 10.
– 17 of August: At ten o’clock in the morning, the Congress and the Senate are constituted simultaneously, each one in its headquarters. It is the day in which the parliamentarians elect the presidents and the Tables of the Chambers and promise or swear the Constitution. That same Tuesday, the person who occupies the Presidency of the Lower House will travel to the Palacio de la Zarzuela to inform the King.
– August 21: After being informed of the composition of Congress, what is foreseeable is that the Head of State will convene in Zarzuela that week of August 21 the representatives of all the formations with a presence in Congress to decide who he orders to submit to the Investiture Session.
– August 24: It is estimated that on that date the period of five business days to form the parliamentary groups of Congress will end, following the regulatory forecasts. Later, the Table of Congress must ratify the parliamentary groups to constitute the Board of Spokespersons, which is the body that orders the plenary sessions and distributes the seats in the chamber.
– First week of September: Once the parliamentary groups and the Board of Spokesmen have been constituted, and the seats in the Chamber have been distributed, plenary sessions can now be called. If the electoral results offer a clear majority or there is an agreement among some political forces, it is estimated that the Investiture Debate could be held at the earliest at the end of August or, more likely, the first week of September. The candidate who achieves the confidence of Congress in one of these two ways will be sworn in as president: in the first vote, adding an absolute majority (176 deputies) or, in a second opportunity, 48 hours later, obtaining more votes in favor than against.
The date of that first investiture vote determines the calendar in the event of a electoral repetition, since, in the event of a blockade, the Cortes will be dissolved two months after that date to hold elections 47 days later.
From the vote, open two scenarios:
a) Government in September: If the investiture has been achieved on the first attempt, the new president could take office on September 8 and immediately name his ministers. With an Executive already on the blue bench, the Solemn Opening Session of the Legislature will be able to be held, presided over by the King, which is not expected until October.
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In any case, the appearances of the new ministers in their respective congressional commissions to present their plans cannot be held until the third week of September because before that the parliamentary groups must reach an agreement on the composition of the commissions, whose number and name depends on the Executive departments, after which they must be constituted.
b) Repeated elections at Christmas? On the contrary, if the investiture has not been achieved in that debate, after the first failed vote, a period of two months begins to count for possible new attempts. This implies that, if there is a failure at the beginning of October -as happened with the failed investitures of Pedro Sánchez in March 2016 and July 2019-, and if a viable alternative is not achieved in the two subsequent months, the Cortes would have to be dissolved again in November and elections held after 47 days, that is, on Christmas dates.