SPAIN: The Spanish parliament began debating on Tuesday a motion of no confidence in the leftist administration submitted by the extreme right Vox party, a move largely expected to fail and that could harm the party’s popularity before the December elections.
Political analysts stated Vox knew it lacked the votes to overthrow the government in the vote on Wednesday but still went ahead, giving socialist prime minister Pedro Sanchez the opportunity to attack the opposition and tout his government’s accomplishments.
“The PM has shown intelligence in taking it upon himself to defend his administration against the motion, with good results,” stated Jose Luis Barreiro Rivas, political scientist at the University of Santiago.
He continued that the motion was “not doing anyone in the opposition any good.”
A Vox source stated that the no confidence motion had caused a profound rift in the party, which is the third-largest in parliament after Sanchez’s PSOE and the conservative People’s Party (PP).
The conservatives have said they will abstain this time after voting against the prior no-confidence vote in 2020.
Sanchez ridiculed the group, accusing it of basically supporting the far right.
Several recent surveys projected that Vox would receive fewer seats than the 52 it obtained in the 350-seat parliament during the 2019 election.
Ramon Tamames, an 89-year-old Vox candidate for prime minister, caused controversy during the discussion by criticizing the government’s policies that led to decisions like removing Francisco Franco’s remains from a mausoleum where the dictator was interred in 1975.
In reaction, Sanchez stated that Vox was utilizing former Communist and anti-dictatorship activist Tamames as “a decoy for its intolerable and unpresentable project.”
“You are whitewashing a party that denies gender equality, that denies climate change… “I don’t think that’s the best idea you’ve had in your life,” said Sanchez.
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