Spain's government faces no-confidence vote brought by Vox
BARCELONA, SPAIN >> Spain's Parliament set aside the business of lawmaking on Tuesday to hold a marathon debate over a no-confidence motion against the government, which was brought by the nation's far-right Vox party and is expected to fail.
Spain's leftist coalition could instead be reinforced by the move that was intended to topple it.
The vote will be held in the 348-member lower chamber on Wednesday. No other party has said it would support the motion by Vox's 52 lawmakers against the Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
In a move that has been widely panned by other political parties and Spanish media, Vox leader Santiago Abascal has broken with custom and isn't presenting himself as an alternative prime minister. Instead, in an attempt to lure votes from centrist and leftist legislators, Vox convinced a former communist party leader and university professor to lead the noconfidence measure as an independent candidate.
Ramón Tamames, 89, who was a lawmaker in the 1970s and 1980s, has pledged that if the vote were to succeed, his only act as prime minister would be to immediately call for a national election to coincide with a local election already scheduled for May 28.
Tamames has said that he doesn't agree with many of Vox's positions, which include its negation of climate change, unfounded charges that migrants are linked to more violent crimes, and its attacks on feminism. But he does share the party's concerns regarding Catalan and Basque separatism and its patriotic defense of the flag and monarchy.
Vox announced its intention to bring the no-confidence motion after Sánchez's government reformed laws on sedition and embezzlement to relieve the legal pressure on Catalan separatists last December.
“Señor Abascal, the candidate that you have presented is simply a decoy for you to hide behind and for you to hide your despicable political agenda,” Sánchez said to the organizer of the vote.
“Should I apologize?” Abascal asked, with irony, in his defense. “Our intention was not to degrade the historic legacy of this legislature. We cannot degrade it more than you already have.”
The traditional conservatives of the Popular Party, who lead the parliamentary opposition to the government, have said that they will abstain. Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has criticized the vote as only handing a parliamentary victory to Sánchez, and as unnecessary with a general election due in December.