Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez wins new term as Spanish PM following election gamble – as it happened

Sánchez won an absolute majority in the investiture vote, securing the support of 179 of Spain’s 350 MPs. But his victory has come at a high price and has depended on the backing of smaller regional parties, including Catalan and Basque nationalists.

Despite finishing first in July’s election, the PP proved unable to form a government with the support of the far-right Vox party and other smaller groupings.

Sánchez and his partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance, however, managed to cobble together the necessary backing for their coalition by acceding to the demands of the two main Catalan pro-independence parties to grant an amnesty to those involved in the failed push for regional independence six years ago.

Read the full story here.

Vox’s Pepa Millán said the party “is going to oppose this coup d’état by all legitimate means.”

Pedro Sánchez, she said, “has become a despot,” adding: “We ask for coordination with the PP against the coup majority.”

📺 TV en DIRECTO #Investidura | Pepa Millán (Vox): "Vox se va a oponer a este golpe de Estado por todos los medios legítimos. Sánchez se ha convertido en un sátrapa. Pedimos una coordinación con el PP contra la mayoría golpista" https://t.co/3GTXwJ9yYD pic.twitter.com/geNBHypvcC

— EL PAÍS (@el_pais) November 16, 2023

The conservative People’s party (PP)'s Alberto Núñez Feijóo gave a flavour of things to come.

“Pedro Sánchez has won an investiture that was sealed in Waterloo. I will lead the opposition, defending equality between all Spaniards and in the face of the huge assault on the rule of law,” he said, adding: “History will grant [Sánchez] no amnesty.”

Pedro Sánchez won the Spanish congress’s approval to become prime minister again with an absolute majority of votes.

The speaker of congress needs to inform king of vote result and Sánchez then needs to see the king to be sworn in – perhaps as early as tomorrow.

It will be a very difficult legislature, with the conservative People’s party (PP) and Vox on full offensive and Junts already warning Sánchez not to take its support for granted.

The bitterly divisive amnesty issue will endure while the legislation passes through parliament and will remain controversial as judges interpret it on a case-by-case basis once it is passed.

The PP will not want to be outflanked on the right by Vox when it comes to continuing to oppose the amnesty legislation, but it will have to tread carefully as previous attempts to ape Vox have alienated its centrist voters.

Vox, which exploded on to the political scene because of the Catalan crisis, will be looking to exploit the amnesty as fully as possible to help arrest its decline in the polls.

The far-right party fared pretty disastrously in July’s election, dropping from 52 seats to 33 as the PP won back disgruntled voters.

Sumar-Podemos tensions could also dominate the coming days and weeks.

Spanish MPs have approved Pedro Sánchez as prime minister.

There were 179 MPs who voted in favour and 171 against.

Despite her plainly worded warning yesterday, Junts’s spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, has confirmed that her party will vote for Sánchez today.

She told the Catalan radio stations RAC1: “We respect the agreements we reach. Months ago we started negotiations that continue today, and Sánchez’s investiture is only one of the points of the agreement we have signed.”

Yesterday’s debate was every bit as tense, angry and bitter as one would expect given the issues at stake and the four months of tension and frantic negotiation that have followed July’s inconclusive general election.

But beyond the showdown between the PSOE and its partners and the PP and Vox, there were also signs of just how fraught the coming legislature is likely to be.

Pedro Sánchez’s assertion that “a united Spain is a better Spain” did not go down with his new backers in Carles Puigdemont’s hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia) party.

Its spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, warned Sánchez that her party’s support for his minority coalition government remained conditional.

“If we are here today it is to make things really change,” she said. “But if there is no progress, we will not approve any initiative presented by your government. It is linked to progress and compliance with agreements.”

Lest the message wasn’t clear enough, she told him “not to tempt fate”.

Junts was always bound to want to demonstrate its independence to MPs and the world – despite its deal with Sánchez – but her words will not be reassuring as the PSOE leader prepares for a new term.

Good morning and welcome back to the Europe blog.

Today we will be focusing on Spain, where the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is expected to win congressional backing for a new term in a vote today.

Send tips and comments to lili.bayer@theguardian.com.

Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has defended the controversial Catalan amnesty law that is set to deliver his socialist party a second term, saying the act of clemency towards hundreds of people involved in the push for regional independence is needed to promote “dialogue, understanding and forgiveness”.

Sánchez and his partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance have agreed to the amnesty in order to secure the key votes of the ERC and Junts, provoking a furious backlash from the conservative People’s party (PP) and Vox, who have accused Sánchez of caving into the separatists, hypocrisy and putting self-preservation before the national interest. The PP has called on the EU to weigh in on the proposed law, while Vox has suggested the acting prime minister is perpetrating “a coup d’état in capital letters”.

Speaking in congress yesterday as MPs held an investiture debate that will be followed by a vote today that he already has the numbers to win, Sánchez said the amnesty would help the country turn the page on the past.

“In the name of Spain and its interests and in the defence of coexistence between Spaniards, we’re going to grant an amnesty to those people who are facing legal action over the [Catalan independence] process,” he said.

“This amnesty will benefit many people, political leaders whose ideas I do not share and whose actions I reject, but also hundreds of citizens who were swept up in the process.”

Read the full story here.