Spain’s Socialist Workers’ Party holds the key to the next government after an inconclusive election, but whether they reach a deal with the conservatives or team up with the anti-austerity party Podemos, they risk losing support, analysts said.
The party, led since last year by telegenic former university professor Pedro Sanchez, came in second in last weekend’s election, winning 22 percent of the vote and 90 seats in the 350-seat parliament.
The Socialists lost ground to far-left Podemos, which was founded just two years ago and came in a close third with 20.7 percent support garnering 69 seats.
Photo: Reuters
Despite a result that ranks as their worst ever, the Socialists are in a position to decide if acting Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s conservative Popular Party (PP) can stay in power.
The PP received the most votes of any party, but it fell well short of an absolute majority in parliament, taking 123 seats, and needs the support of the Socialists to govern in a minority.
However, Sanchez has said the Socialists would not support any effort by Rajoy to stay on in his post via a coalition or a minority government.
“We will vote against the continuity of the Popular Party at the helm of the government, with Mariano Rajoy as prime minister,” he said on Wednesday after holding talks with Rajoy.
Analysts said allowing the PP to stay in power could alienate left-wing voters who oppose austerity measures introduced by Rajoy in response to Spain’s financial crisis.
“It would be political suicide,” University of Santiago de Compostela political science professor Anton Losa said.
He said that the Socialists focused their campaign on the need to “send Rajoy home.”
“If they pact with the PP it would be very complicated” for Sanchez, because “the base of parties is always more radical” then its leadership, polling firm GAD3 chairman Narciso Michavila said.
The Socialists would try to form a government themselves by joining forces with Podemos and other smaller regional nationalist parties, Sanchez said.
However, teaming up with Podemos would also be a risky move, analysts said.
Podemos is the only national party to back an independence referendum in the wealthy northeastern region of Catalonia, where secessionist parties have an absolute majority in the regional parliament.
If Sanchez accepts this condition, he faces the wrath of Socialist party barons who are fiercely opposed to Catalonia’s separatist drive, such as Susana Diaz, the head of the regional government of the southern region of Andalusia, a Socialist bastion.
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