With the minutes ticking down in the second half, Albert Rivera has made a showy play. With only a week left for the Spanish Congress to invest a prime minister before another election is automatically called, he's offered a "statesman's solution". This proposal, which he had previously mentioned to PP's Pablo Casado, would involve the two parties abstaining on a vote to invest Pedro Sánchez as prime minister, in exchange for certain promises. "We're prepared to do it, but Sánchez has to make a commitment to Spain and the Spanish people," he said after a meeting this Monday with his party's executive.
Rivera's proposal to avoid a fourth general election in as many years comes the same day that kind Felipe VI has started a final round of talks with political parties to find out if any candidate he could nominate would have a chance of being successful. The deadline for a new prime minister to be invested is 23rd September, after which the Congress and Senate will automatically be dissolved and a general election called for 10th November, as happened after the 2015 election. Rivera and Casado met this afternoon in the Congress to discuss the idea.
If Rivera's Cs party abstains, Sánchez could get the simple majority he would need in a second-round of voting. For that abstention, Rivera would want something in exchange. One of Rivera's three conditions related to Catalonia: Sánchez has to commit to not pardoning the pro-independence leaders if they are convicted and sentenced and form a round table to "plan" the application of article 155 of the Spanish Constitution to Catalonia if the government doesn't accept the sentence. Article 155 was the one used by Mariano Rajoy's central government in 2017 to suspend Catalan autonomy and call a parliamentary election.
They also want a commitment Sánchez won't raise taxes for families and the self-employed and they want to "recover Navarre for Spain". For them, that means an end to the recently formed coalition between PSN, the local sister party of PSOE, and left-wing and Basque nationalist partners, to form instead a coalition government with Navarre Suma, the electoral coalition which includes the local branches of PP and Cs.
Rivera described this path as being a "constitutionalist government" and argued that it's a "viable solution" to escape the political stalemate in Spain. He said PSOE and Unidas Podemos "have for months been making us lose time and money".
"If the left is fighting, we constitutionalists have to be up to standard", he said, although he was less critical than normal of Sánchez. "If he's able to say 'yes' to these three commitments, today we can tell the Spanish people there won't be an election".
Sánchez responded within hours, saying: "There's no real obstacle to them abstaining, which is what we've been asking for since 28th April." Parties sources added: "There's a government in Navarre which defends the Constitution; in Catalonia too, the Spanish government is ensuring the Constitution is obeyed; and we want to lower taxes on the middle class."