Election looms in Spain as Catalans unite with right to defeat Sanchez
Political crisis as prime minister sees budget plan rejected after refusing talks with separatist deputies
CATALAN separatist and right-wing politicians in the Spanish parliament’s lower house have rejected the ruling Socialist government’s 2019 budget plan, paving the way for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call an early election.
The 191-158 vote, with one abstention, opened a new crisis in Spanish politics. Members of Mr Sanchez’s cabinet had signalled a defeat in the budget vote would lead to a fresh general election.
The only other time a Spanish government lost a budget vote, in 1995, the Socialists were forced to dissolve parliament and call an election.
The prime minister’s office said Mr Sánchez plans to announce his decision after the weekly cabinet meeting on Friday.
Opposition leader Pablo Casado, head of the conservative People’s Party, said yesterday’s vote was “a de facto confidence vote against Pedro Sanchez”.
Catalan deputies from pro-independence parties had demanded to open talks on the north-eastern region’s self-determination in exchange for supporting Mr Sánchez’s spending proposal, but the centre-left minority government rejected the demand.
The Socialist party holds only 84 seats in the 350-seat lower house. Its votes and those of the anti-austerity Podemos party weren’t enough to counter a majority of centre-right, conservative and smaller parties voting in favour of six blanket objections.
Mr Sánchez became prime minister in June when the Catalans joined Podemos and other smaller parties in backing a no-confidence vote against his conservative predecessor Mariano Rajoy.
Without parliamentary sup- port, Mr Sánchez’s govern-
The opposition leader said the vote was a ‘de facto confidence vote against Pedro Sanchez’
ment can’t pass significant legislation and would need to prolong Mr Rajoy’s 2018 spending plan. That leaves the centre-left administration without funds for social policies that are key to retaining Podemos support.
Mr Sánchez rushed out of the lower house’s chamber shortly after the vote, dodging questions from reporters.
Finance minister Maria Jesus Montero said it made sense for Mr Sánchez’s term in office, which normally would end next year, to be shortened following the budget
rejection – but that it was up to the prime minister himself to decide if and when to call an election early. “We now,” want elections Albert of the Rivera, leader centre-right party, Citizens said after the vote. Talks between Mr Sánchez’s government and a new separatist coalition that took power in Catalonia after 2017’s failed independence push broke down last week when the government refused to accept self-determination talks. “Sooner or later we will have to negotiate a solution, a democratic solution,” said Joan Tardà, a prominent Catalan pro-independence politician. The People’s and Citizens parties, along with members of the emerging far-right party Vox, have urged Mr Sánchez to step down for relying on support from separatist Catalan representatives to remain in government. The trial of a dozen politicians and activists who drove a breakaway attempt in Catalonia in the fall of 2017 began on Tuesday. Their prosecution has angered many supporters of the independence region’s from Spain. On the second day of the politically charged trial, a Supreme Court prosecutor criticised what he said were defence lawyers’ attempts to turn the proceedings into an examination of the Spanish state and judiciary. Prosecutor Javier Zaragoza called the arguments made a day earlier “ridiculous” and “unjustified”. Defence lawyers said on Tuesday the case was politically motivated and an attempt to eliminate dissent in Catalonia. The 12 Catalan politicians and activists face years behind bars if they are convicted of rebellion or other charges for having pushed ahead with a unilateral independence declaration that started an unprecedented political crisis in Spain. The defendants are being tried on rebellion and other charges stemming from their roles in pushing ahead with a unilateral independence declaration in October 2017. The declaration was based on the results of a divisive secession referendum that ignored a constitutional ban.