Sanchez further from forming government: Socialists lose seat after vote count from abroad

(Patria) - Spanish socialists have one less seat after counting votes from abroad, making it more difficult for them to form a left-wing coalition as they need the support of Catalan separatists, not just their abstention, Reuters reported.

In the elections held last Sunday, neither the left nor the right blocs won enough seats to form a majority, and the Catalan separatist parties Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Junts emerged as the deciding factor, with both holding seven seats.

Esquerra is expected to support the socialist Pedro Sanchez, but with the new count of parliamentary seats, confirmed by the electoral commission on Saturday evening, it seems that Junts, the hardline Catalan party, would also have to actively support Sanchez to form a government.

With the counting of votes from more than 233,000 Spaniards living abroad, one seat in Madrid was awarded to the People's Party (PP), which was previously awarded to the socialists in the initial vote count.

To form a government, 176 votes are needed in the 350-seat parliament. If neither bloc has this, a new vote is held, and the party with the most votes wins by a simple majority. According to the revised seat count, the PP could gather a total of 171 votes, including 137 of their own, 33 from the far-right Vox party, and one from the Union of the People of Navarre, a regional party. No other party has said it will support a government that includes Vox.

The spokesperson for the Canarian Coalition, a regional party with one MP, said they would not support a government that includes Vox, but had not decided whether to support Sanchez. Sanchez could gather 171 seats with the socialists' 121 seats and the support of the far-left party Sumar (31 seats), Esquerra (seven), Basque separatists EH Bildu (six), the Basque Nationalist Party (five), and the Galician Nationalist Bloc (one).

On Friday, before the change in results caused by the counting of diaspora votes, the left bloc counted on 172 votes, while the PP and allies Vox and UPN could gather 170. This meant that Sanchez only had to convince Junts to abstain from voting, and thus be elected by a simple majority. Now, depending on how the Canarian party decides to act, Sanchez will likely need at least one vote from Junts to defeat the PP and its allies.

Junts, which takes a harder stance on Catalan independence than ERC, said on Monday that its conditions for helping Sanchez were permission to hold a referendum in Catalonia on independence and amnesty for all separatists facing legal charges related to the failed 2017 independence referendum. Holding a referendum would require a change to the Spanish constitution and a vote by a majority of MPs, which is unlikely to happen.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo, the leader of the PP, remains determined to try to form a right-wing coalition.

"Feijoo wants to govern on behalf of all Spaniards," said Pedro Rollan, the PP's regional coordinator, in Madrid on Saturday.

Sumar leader Yolanda Díaz has called on all "progressive forces" to support Sanchez.

"I believe that political groups must seize the opportunity, and I appeal to the progressive and democratic forces of the country to guarantee that (Sanchez) will be voted in as prime minister," she said in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica published on Saturday.