An election repeat in Spain appears less likely after a last-minute deal was reached Thursday regarding control of the Spanish parliament’s main administrative body.
According to several Spanish media reports, the Catalan separatist Junts party has agreed to back Francina Armengol, the socialist candidate for the presidency of the parliament’s bureau, the powerful body that approves the creation of parliamentary groups, authorizes investigative commissions and ultimately determines which bills are taken up by MPs.
The last-minute deal, which was announced just minutes before the parliament began the new legislative session, comes as a relief for socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who hopes to remain in power in the fractured political landscape created by last month’s inconclusive national elections.
After the July 23 vote, Spain’s left-wing and right-wing political blocs each control 171 seats in the 350-seat chamber. The support of Junts’ MPs is key for the election of the parliament’s leadership — which is crucial to the legislative process — and will ultimately be required when Sánchez makes his bid to form a government next month.
The Junts party, which is controlled by the self-exiled former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont, had originally conditioned any support for Sánchez and the Socialist Party to the granting of a blanket amnesty for everyone implicated in the failed 2017 Catalan independence referendum along with Madrid’s consent to hold a new vote on self-determination.
In the end, however, Junts’ backing for Armengol’s candidacy has apparently been secured in exchange for new measures promoting the use of the Catalan language in the Spanish parliament, the creation of a special committee tasked with investigating the surveillance of Catalan separatists.