Madrid, Nov 13 (EFE).- Spain’s interim prime minister, the Socialist Workers’ Party’s (PSOE) Pedro Sánchez, is expected to be confirmed for another four-year term during a debate in parliament this week, Congress president Francine Armengol said Monday.
The investiture debate will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, Armengol said.
King Felipe VI appointed Sánchez to form a government last month, after Albert Feijóo – whose right-wing People’s Party (PP) narrowly beat PSOE in a July snap election – had failed in his attempts to garner enough support for a parliamentary majority.
Sánchez’s path to power was cleared last week after PSOE struck deals with the pro-independence Catalan groups Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) and Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), as well as the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) and the Canary Coalition (CC), giving Sánchez 179 of 350 parliamentary votes – enough for an absolute majority.
Junts leader Carles Puigdemont, who has lived in exile in Belgium since he and hundreds of other politicians and activists were charged for their roles in an unsanctioned 2017 independence referendum, had refused to back Sanchez in government unless the charges were lifted.
The agreements with the Catalan groups – which are underpinned by a highly controversial law that will grant pardons to those charged following the referendum – have sparked intense anger in Spain, particularly from the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox.
Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across Spain on Sunday to protest against the amnesty law. EFE
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