Spain’s parties seek to avoid Christmas Day poll

Spain’s ruling Popular Party began talks Friday with upstart party Ciudadanos in a bid to spare voters a third election in a year on Christmas day.

The move is a first step towards unblocking the eight-month-long political paralysis that has gripped Spain as squabbling parties remain unable to reach any kind of agreement on a government following two inconclusive general elections.

The Popular Party (PP) of acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy needs Ciudadanos’s votes if it is to form a minority government. And the centre-right formation will not back him unless it can agree on Mr Rajoy’s future policies.

The corruption-hit PP has already accepted hard-to-swallow conditions set by its partner to enter the talks: a set of anti-corruption measures and a reform a Spain’s electoral law, currently unfavourable to smaller parties like Ciudadanos.

But even if Ciudadanos, which gained 32 seats in June elections, accepts to support the PP, Rajoy will still not have a majority to push his government plans through.

He also needs the support of the Socialists, his traditional rivals, or at the very least their abstention when he asks for a confidence vote in Parliament. So far they refuse to help him.

Mr Rajoy has appealed to their sense of responsibility and warned that Spain would be the laughing stock of Europe if it was unable to form a government and voters had to go back to the polls.

He increased the pressure one notch on Thursday by announcing he would address parliament on August 30 to call for a confidence vote, which under constitutional deadlines means the next election would take place on December 25.

“Let’s see if (Socialist party chief Pedro) Sanchez has to nerve to force 36 millions Spaniards to vote on Christmas day,” Rajoy’s lieutenant in Catalonia Xavier Albiol said on Twitter.

But Pedro Sanchez remained adamant on Friday, repeating that his party would vote against a Rajoy government. “It can say it louder but I cannot say it more clearly,” he told reporters.