Forty-eight hours later, Spain's Congress of Deputies has given the definitive rejection to the proposal to invest the People's Party (PP) leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo as head of a new Spanish government. It was only due to a mistake by deputy Eduard Pujol - who said sí when his name was called in the oral voting procedure and quickly corrected it to no - that the photograph was not exactly the same as on Wednesday. The Bureau of Congress in the end decided to consider that the vote by the Together for Catalonia (Junts) member was null, meaning that the final result was 177 votes against and 172 in favour. Errors aside, the major left-bloc parties the Socialists (PSOE) and Sumar, plus the five Catalan, Basque and Galician groups - ERC, Junts, Bildu, the PNV and the BNG - sent the PP to lead the opposition. The conservative leader only received the support of his own group, plus far-right Vox, the Coalición Canária and Navarra's UPN in his quest to become new Spanish PM. Thus, Congress has opened the way for Pedro Sánchez, who has two months to reach an agreement with the Catalan pro-independence parties and in particular with Junts's Carles Puigdemont. The Spanish head of state, Felipe VI, has already announced that, in line with the protocol, he will open another round of contacts with the parties on Monday and Tuesday, which can be expected to formalize the Socialist leader's candidacy.
Feijóo arrived at the Congress this Friday with the 172 votes in favour that he has been practically assured of since the final results of the July 23rd general election. But the vote today marked the end of a month of unsuccessful PP negotiations with other groups to win the added support he needed for an investiture. In his speech, and aware that he had already lost, the PP leader made a last desperate call to Pedro Sánchez to reject the amnesty and referendum that Junts and ERC are proposing. The proposed resolution approved in the Catalan Parliament was fuel for the conservative.
Feijóo to Sánchez: "I say no to the amnesty and the referendum. And you?”
"I say no to the amnesty and the referendum. And you?" asked Feijóo, looking into the eyes of the acting Spanish prime minister, whom he challenged to break the silence he has maintained this week in the Spanish parliament: "Come up here, don't hide, and speak clearly. No announcements at 8pm. Have the courage to say what Spain will have to endure again if you are again leader of the government". Feijóo made it clear that he did not want to be head of the executive "at the expense of the dignity and equality of Spaniards" and predicted that, if there is an agreement between the PSOE and the pro-independence parties, a government based on lies will be formed", in reference to the electoral programme of the Socialists, which did not refer to the amnesty law. The other scenario, Feijóo has predicted, is the "repeat election".
When it was the PSOE's turn, deputy Óscar Puente railed against Feijóo for having presented himself in an investiture that, from the beginning, was known to be destined for failure. "Your group, who are disloyal to the Constitution, are demanding parliamentary courtesy", he said, referring to the PP's complaints that Sánchez had not personally responded to Feijóo in this debate. "And you have used the Spanish crown to summon us to a mock investiture", he lamented. He also took advantage of his speech to directly attack Feijóo, urging him to test his leadership in a PP conference in which the party grassroots could choose between him, Isabel Díaz Ayuso or Juanma Moreno.
Feijóo, strengthened internally despite the calls for abstention
Since 23rd July, despite achieving first place at the general election, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has slowly seen his position eroded by events: in the constitution of Congress, in the universalization of Spain's co-official languages and in the investiture itself that has just begun. Now, the Galician leader leaves Congress with the feeling that he has strengthened his internal leadership of the People's Party after weeks of doubts and pressure from the ultra wing, represented by José María Aznar and Isabel Díaz Ayuso. "We are content because we have achieved what we wanted", was the message from Feijóo's circles this week in the congressional corridors. And what was it that they wanted? His trusted inner circle hinted that the intention was to "hold up" the negotiations between the PSOE, Junts and the Republican Left to public opinion. And in the event of a repeat election, the PP's message has been made clear.
In any case - and already thinking ahead to an investiture proposal by Pedro Sánchez - in the last few hours a current of opinion has surfaced within the main party of the Spanish right that, in order to prevent the amnesty of the independentists from taking place, the PP should offer abstention to the PSOE in the coming weeks. The loudest voice has been that of the PP's former Madrid regional president, Esperanza Aguirre, who called for this move "so that he does not govern with the pro-independence parties", as she assured Telecinco this Friday. The first to hint at it was the Catalan deputy Nacho Martín Blanco, although the PP denied the scenario immediately. "The PP does not contemplate any formula except for Feijóo presiding over the government of Spain as the party which won the most votes", argued sources from PP headquarters.
Junts and ERC also call for the Catalan referendum in Congress
The tug-of-war in the Catalan Parliament, with Junts and ERC doing battle with the Catalan Socialists over the amnesty and self-determination, was also replicated in Madrid this Friday. The two pro-independence parties called for a Catalan independence referendum to resolve the political conflict between Catalonia and Spain, and came down hard on Alberto Núñez Feijóo as the leader of the party responsible for the 2017 police violence against Catalans as well as the Operation Catalonia "dirty war", among other actions.
Míriam Nogueras, leader of Junts in Madrid, criticized Feijóo for having not made "a single proposal" for Catalonia in his entire investiture debate. And she recalled that he is running on behalf of a deeply Catalan-phobic party, which collected signatures all over Spain against the 2006 Catalan Statute of Autonomy, which has alway persecuted the Catalan language and which was the architect of the Article 155 direct rule over Catalonia, among other charges. “Voting is not division; in Catalonia, voting is consensus, and now it's up to Catalonia to be Catalonia", asserted Nogueras, reiterating the need for Catalans to be able to vote on their political future.
Republican deputy Teresa Jordà expressed herself in similar terms, saying that "dedicating ERC votes to the defence of Catalonia" means voting against a PP candidate. "Let's remember the baton blows we received on October 1st", she said, claiming the moral imperative in defending the Catalan language and working to achieve the country's independence. And she commented ironically on the July election results, reminding Feijóo that if Catalonia and the Basque Country became independent, PP and Vox would be able to govern the redrawn Spain with a comfortable majority.
Could Canary Islands stand in the way of a Madrid-Waterloo pact?
This Friday, minutes before Feijóo's investiture was formally rejected, the first speculative calculations were already being made in Congress's courtyard, calculator in hand. And one of Pedro Sánchez's most trusted ministers showed herself convinced that she could win over the support of the Canarian Coalition in an investiture of the Socialist leader. She argued that everything they had agreed with the PP is also acceptable to the PSOE.
In other words, a not too far-fetched scenario is starting to open up in which the Socialists only have to secure the abstention of Junts, and not necessarily the party's affirmative votes. This is because the 'yes' of the single Canary deputy, added to those of the PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu, PNB and BNG would give a result of 172 affirmative votes. Then, with an abstention from the seven Junts MPs, the negative votes of the PP, Vox and UPN would add up to 171. Sufficient to invest Sánchez as prime minister on the second ballot. All this, however, has a risk for the Canarian party: they currently govern in the islands with the PP, as a result of this year's autonomous community election on 28th May: would the Spanish conservative tear up their deal if the Coalición Canária ended up supporting a Pedro Sánchez investiture?