Spain’s Premier Courts Allies as Opponents Vow to Obstruct Him

(Bloomberg) -- Pedro Sanchez kicked off a new round of talks with rivals in a bid to remain Spain’s prime minister as parties to his political right repeated pledges to obstruct him.

Pablo Iglesias, leader of the anti-austerity platform Podemos, said Sanchez had offered him the possibility of joining a “government of co-operation” after a meeting on Tuesday in Madrid. As Sanchez asks parties across the political spectrum to give ground, the conservative People’s Party and the liberals of Ciudadanos again vowed to stonewall his efforts.

Sanchez’s Socialists emerged as the biggest party in parliament after general elections in April, but is well short of a governing majority, even with Podemos as a likely partner. At the moment, Sanchez is still trying to persuade the PP and Ciudadanos to agree to abstain in an investiture vote to allow him to govern without potentially needing to rely on Catalan separatist parties to smooth his path to power.

Sanchez also met Albert Rivera, the leader of Ciudadanos, and was due to meet the PP’s chief, Pablo Casado, later on Tuesday. Officials from both parties have said they won’t do anything to make it easier for him to take office.

“Sincerity is telling the truth and in this case it was to tell Sanchez that we won’t support his investiture,” Rivera said during a news conference.

A refusal by the PP and Ciudadanos to abstain would force Sanchez to scrape together support from a medley of regional parties. Relying on abstentions from Catalan separatist parties, such as ERC, would be tricky politically for Sanchez given their stated aim of wishing to split from Spain.

To contact the reporter on this story: Charles Penty in Madrid at cpenty@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chad Thomas at cthomas16@bloomberg.net, Richard Bravo, Zoe Schneeweiss

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