Spain no closer to forming a new government following comments from Pedro Sanchez

IT DOESN’T look as if Mariano Rajoy as the leader with the most number of votes is going to have an easy time trying to form a new government following comments made by PSOE leader and natural opposition party after a period of nearly a fortnight of silence.

He said at a meeting with the party Federal Committee that his party would vote against Mariano Rajoy as Prime Minister and added “Fulfil your responsibility, Mr. Rajoy, and agree a new government with parties like yours, because it is up to you, and don’t count on the socialists for that”.

In good old political newspeak, he also congratulated his party on what it has achieved at the June 26 election despite the fact that it had lost 5 seats since the December elections at a cost of €500,000.

With regards to the other parties, he described his former alliance partner Ciudadanos as natural partners to the PP and to Unidos Podemos as “the failed coalition” and “a mish-mash of letters”.

It has to be noted that his position as leader of PSOE is to say the least precarious although he also intimated that he was not trenchantly opposed to allowing PP to govern with his party the natural opposition, but he was completely opposed to Mr Rajoy remaining as Prime Minister.

Quick to respond, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias told his party that it was pathetic that Mr Sanchez was more worried by Podemos than Mr Rajoy and in his usual quasi academic way, spent a considerable amount of time ‘bigging up’ his party and criticising the others with the basic statement “both Podemos and Unidos Podemos have shown they are here to stay”