Ángel Collado
Vox, the extreme right wing in the Spanish Parliament, is once again providing Pedro Sánchez with another opportunity for promotion or personal relaunching by presenting an unviable vote of no confidence against the President of the Government, who from today will choose the date and circumstances for his election campaign.
The show in Congress is served. Santiago Abascal will seek his moment of glory and prominence as an alternative to the alternative, the People’s Party, while the head of the Executive will confirm the solidity of his coalition’s parliamentary majority regardless of the internal fights in the cabinet.
Never before has the figure of the vote of no confidence, which in the Constitution is designed to ensure an orderly changeover in the Executive, been so twisted in Congress. It is so positive in nature that it consists of proposing to the lower house the investiture of an aspirant to the presidency of the government who does not even have to be a member of parliament, but who takes the floor to present his or her programme. To initiate the procedure and for the debate to be held with a vote, all that is needed is the signature of 35 MPs, ten percent of the members of the House itself.
Vox has 52 MPs and this is the second time that Abascal has initiated a vote of no confidence. Unlike the previous occasion, in October 2020, when it failed and he was left alone with his deputies, this time he is not even running as a candidate. Abascal delegates Ramón Tamames, 89 years old and leader of the Communist Party of Spain in the times of the Transition.
The constitutionalists will have little room for criticism of the veteran economics professor’s record. Tamames was involved in the pacts of the current Constitution with the centre right (UCD) and the PSOE in 1978. The only idea Tamames shares with Vox is the urgency of removing Sánchez from power.
On the verge of absurdity, between March and April Congress will debate a motion of censure with an aspiring prime minister who does not intend to take office, only to give his speech; who is presented by a party alien to or contrary to his ideas and who has no support other than that of 15 per cent of the deputies.
The parliamentary session will be substantiated in the secondary protagonism of Abascal when he presents Tamames and then has his turn to speak to criticise Sánchez and postulate himself as an alternative to “the cowardly right wing” or “social democrat”, which is what he calls the People’s Party headed by Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The main role in the motion will be left to Sánchez, who is delighted to confront the extreme right that he sees as a threat despite its downward trend in all the elections and polls of the last two years. That is why Abascal was forced to present another motion of censure, in order to regain presence and ground in the face of Feijóo’s advance in the two elections of the year: regional and local elections on 28 May and general elections six months later.
Sánchez sees the parliamentary elections as a very opportune moment to reinforce the message that the PP may depend on Vox when it comes to forming government majorities in several autonomous communities and many city councils. And then also in the general elections to win more seats than those of the PSOE coalition and the far left.
In the government, Abascal’s initiative, announced on 9 December and not registered in Congress until now, when the division in the Executive is at its most tense due to the “only yes is yes” law, has been welcomed with evident satisfaction. Sánchez will decide when it suits him best to go to the House to confirm the solidity of his parliamentary majority and the unity of his government, even if it is only at the time to vote ‘no’ to the candidate presented by Vox (Tamames), who will only represent himself.
The People’s Party assumes that Abascal’s real objective in the motion of censure is to halt the rise of Feijóo, who has no role in the debate because he is not a member of parliament. The Popular Party only hopes that voters will perceive that Vox does not mind giving oxygen to Sánchez in order to ensure two days of prominence. They have not hesitated to advance their abstention. They have the precedent of Pablo Casado’s ‘no’ to Abascal in 2020, the only time when the then head of the opposition was praised by the Government and the media, delighted with the right-wing row.
Feijóo is now being asked to follow this example, which ratifies the PP president in his decision to abstain in order to contribute as little as possible to the absurdity.
