The socialist Armengol, elected president of the Congress

This election bodes well for Sánchez’s chances of being sworn in as Prime Minister in the coming days, thus avoiding new elections.

The socialist Francina Armengol has been elected president of the Spanish Congress of Deputies, with 176 votes after obtaining the support of two Catalan pro-independence parties, ERC with whom she established a pact and Junts, led by Carles Puigdemont, self-exiled in Belgium to avoid being prosecuted in Spain, where he faces charges of disobedience and embezzlement after Catalonia’s failed declaration of independence.

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This election bodes well for Pedro Sánchez’s chances of being sworn in as Prime Minister in the coming days, thus avoiding new elections.

The agreement, reached early in the morning, allowed the Socialist Party and its allies to obtain the votes of the seven deputies of Junts per Catalunya (JxCat, Together for Catalonia), the party led by the independence leader Carles Puigdemont, exiled in Belgium and claimed by the Spanish Justice since 2017 and the failure of an attempt to secede from Catalonia.

This paradox has its origin in the surprising results of the general elections on July 23, in which the Popular Party obtained a much smaller victory than expected, since the two blocs, that of the outgoing progressive government and that of the right and far right, each could count on 171 votes.

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