MADRID, 17 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, will go this Friday to the Palacio de La Zarzuela to inform the head of state of the constitution of the Chamber so that Felipe VI can organize the round of consultations with the parties to probe their position regarding the investiture of the next president of the Government.
According to sources from the institution, the third authority of the State will be received by the King at 10:30 in the morning and then he will return to Congress to hold the first meeting of the elected Bureau this Thursday.
A priori, the King’s round of consultations is presented differently from all the previous ones since, for the first time in recent years, there are two candidates who aspire to ask for the confidence of Parliament: Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the winner of the 23rd elections July and Pedro Sánchez, who sees himself capable of weaving alliances and adding enough votes to overcome the vote.
Article 99 of the Constitution establishes that, “after each renewal of the Congress of Deputies, the King, after consultation with the representatives designated by the political groups with parliamentary representation, and through the president of the Congress, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the government”.
The Magna Carta does not determine that the winner of the elections should be a candidate, it simply states that whoever achieves the confidence of Congress will be sworn in as president, either in a first vote with an absolute majority or in a second with more votes in favor than against.
Therefore, it is Congress who chooses the new Prime Minister, but it is the King who decides who will submit to the investiture debate. Until now, the decision was simple and there was only one candidate on the table, the one with the most votes in the elections, and another thing is that later his candidacy prospered or not in the vote in Congress.
Only once, in January 2016, did the winner of the elections inform the head of state that he was resigning as a candidate, considering that he did not have enough votes: Mariano Rajoy. This forced Felipe VI to organize a second round of consultations and end up giving the opportunity to whoever came second, Pedro Sánchez, who failed to be sworn in.
On this occasion, both the winner of the elections, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the one who claims to have options to overcome the investiture vote, Pedro Sánchez, have shown themselves publicly willing to assume the task of submitting to the investiture debate.
From the PP they claim that Feijóo was the winner of the elections on July 23 and that he has already secured the vote of 171 deputies (PP, Vox and UPN) with the option of also joining the Canary Coalition.
As they emphasize, they have an advantage of 50 seats over the PSOE, since not all the parties of the Sumar coalition take their support for the socialist candidate for granted, much less the independentistas of ERC and Junts, nor the nationalists of the PNV and the BNG, parties that insist on refusing to issue “blank checks”.
On the eve of the constitution of the Congress, Pedro Sánchez already declared the PP and Vox tandem “failed”, calling the PP’s calculations “magical cabals” and this Thursday, after the ‘popular’ only managed to add 139 votes for his candidate for the Presidency of Congress, the PSOE, Sumar and other minority formations have terminated any option for Feijóo.
Finally, Vox has not supported Cuca Gamarra’s candidacy for that position because the PP has not wanted to give them the vice-presidency of the Bureau that they claimed. The socialist Francina Armengol has taken over the Presidency of the Chamber by 178 votes, all except those of the PP, UPN and the Canary Islands Coalition, which have supported the ‘popular’ candidate. Thus, the PSOE defends that there is only one possible investiture, that of Pedro Sánchez.
Once Armengol informs Felipe VI of the composition of Congress for this XV Legislature, the head of state will be able to organize his round of consultations to find out who each party plans to vote for.
The idea is that the meetings will take place next week, but at least three of Pedro Sánchez’s hypothetical partners do not plan to go to the appointment and, therefore, will not directly inform the King of their intentions: ERC, Junts and Bildu, who They do not recognize the political authority of the head of state and maintain a boycott, especially after his speech after the illegal referendum on October 1, 2017.
