Polarized by Catalan crisis, Spain heads to snap election
SPAIN’S prime minister on Friday called an early general election for April 28, the third in less than four years, after his draft budget was rejected in parliament over the Catalan secession crisis.
“Between doing nothing and continuing without the budget and calling on Spaniards to have their say, I choose the second. Spain needs to keep advancing, progressing with tolerance, respect, moderation and common sense,” Sanchez said in a televised address to the nation following a cabinet meeting. “I have proposed to dissolve parliament and call elections for April 28th.”
Sanchez took power just over eight months ago after he ousted his conservative rival, Mariano Rajoy in a dramatic parliamentary no-confidence vote, but it has been a turbulent term. Rajoy was the first prime minister in Spain’s modern democratic history to be ousted by parliament after losing a no-confidence vote.
He took office in June and had since been leading a government that depended on the votes of small regional parties to pass legislation. He was thrown against the ropes this week when Catalan nationalist parties, at a time of heightened tension over an independence drive by their region, deserted to help defeat the fiscal bill.
Opinion polls show that no single party would win enough votes to govern on its own, with possible coalition scenarios pointing to lengthy negotiations between three or more parties, potentially including the far-right Vox party. Sanchez’s Socialists are leading in polls, with estimates from the last few months averaging at 24 percent, according to a poll by daily El Pais. But the conservative People’s Party (PP) and centerright Ciudadanos would not be far behind and could theoretically form a coalition with Vox, as they did in the Andalusia region in December. But Ciudadanos might balk at teaming up with the far-right party nationally, preferring instead a three-way alliance with the Socialists and the anti-austerity Podemos party.