Feijóo fails to win backing for top job Sam Jones Spanish People’s party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has officially failed to garner sufficient votes to become the country’s next prime minister. MPs voted by a margin of 172 in favour of his bid and 177 against, with one null vote. Junts MP Eduard Pujol accidentally voted in favour. Summary of the day Although Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s People’s party finished first in Spain’s July snap general election, it failed to win enough votes to form a government, taking 137 seats in Spain’s 350-seat congress. Today, Feijóo officially failed to garner sufficient votes to become the country’s next prime minister. MPs voted by a margin of 172 in favour of his bid and 177 against, with one null vote. Junts MP Eduard Pujol accidentally voted in favour of Feijóo. Ahead of the vote, Feijóo told MPs that “there is no possibility of triumph for any candidate – even if they become prime minister – because lies and deception bring no possible success.” During the debate, socialist MP Óscar Puente told Feijóo he has had a month to change the focus of Spanish politics – “but you’ve squandered it”. Marta Lois, spokesperson for the left-wing Sumar alliance, accused Feijóo of disrespecting congress and wasting everyone’s time. Far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal said that “an amnesty is an assault – an attack on the Spanish people.” “Now that this spectacle is over, it is time to work harder for the progressive government Spain deserves,” Sumar’s Yolanda Díaz wrote on social media following the vote. Sam Jones Vox leader Santiago Abascal’s dire warnings about Spaniards defending themselves in the face of a possible amnesty (see here) have not gone unnoticed by the former Podemos leader and deputy prime minister, Pablo Iglesias. “Abascal is wishing for a Reichstag fire,” he wrote on X, in a reference to the 1933 Berlin blaze that helped bring Hitler to power. “And, among the ashes, some media will talk about ‘tensions between Vox and democracy’.” Iglesias has always made his feelings about the far-right party perfectly plain. Three years ago, he suggested Vox would like to see a coup d’état in Spain but lacked the courage to stage one, telling its MPs: “You’re not even fascists – you’re just parasites.” Feijóo speaks out after loss After failing to garner sufficient support to become prime minister, Alberto Núñez Feijóo vowed that his People’s party will govern one day. The party is “at the service of the Spanish people to defend the values ​​that the majority shares,” he said. Spanish socialists are now celebrating the vote’s outcome Sam Jones What’s next No surprises at all then – except for the Junts MP Eduard Pujol accidentally voting yes to Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s investiture. But what happens next? Put simply, the onus is now on Pedro Sánchez to cobble together the necessary support to mount his own bid for prime minister. The problem is the price the two main Catalan pro-independence parties ask in return for their support. The amnesty sought by Carles Puigdemont is a massive ask politically and among voters, while a formally agreed referendum on Catalan independence is a red line for the socialists. We can expect days, if not weeks of negotiations and horse-trading as Sánchez tries to secure the support he needs. Once the king has given his permission for Sánchez to try to form a government, the PSOE leader will give it a go. If he fails to form a government by 27 November, parliament will be dissolved and Spain will return to the polls in mid-January for its sixth general election in nine years. Feijóo fails to win backing for top job Sam Jones Spanish People’s party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has officially failed to garner sufficient votes to become the country’s next prime minister. MPs voted by a margin of 172 in favour of his bid and 177 against, with one null vote. Junts MP Eduard Pujol accidentally voted in favour. As we wait for results, harsh words from Alberto Núñez Feijóo about his rivals. The vote is about to begin. The speaker, Francina Armengol, is explaining the oral vote: yes, no or abstention. Remember, only a simple majority - more yes votes than no - is needed. Oskar Matute of the Basque pro-independence party EH Bildu has taken the PP and the Spanish right to task for a litany of historical and present-day offences, from murdering the poet Federico García Lorca to suppressing the Basque language under Francisco Franco and failing to protect the Doñana wetlands in Andalucía. He spoke in Basque and then in Spanish. Addressing the chamber in Catalan - which has been permitted since the week before last – Teresa Jordà of the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) said her party’s votes will always be given in the service of “the interests of the Catalan people”. She added that the possible amnesty must “open a phase of negotiations to definitively fix the conditions so that Catalonia can vote”. Far-right Vox party leader Santiago Abascal also appeared to make a veiled threat at the end of his speech, saying: “An amnesty is an assault – an attack on the Spanish people.” An amnesty, he added, is “an attack on the Spaniards who pay their fines religiously, on those who pay their taxes with or without complaint, an attack on those who obey laws even if they don’t like them. It’s also an attack on prisoners in jail for the various crimes they have committed”. “ It’s an assault – and the Spanish people have a duty and a right to defend themselves. And they will, so don’t come crying afterwards,” he said. Pedro Sánchez appeared to be in a good mood during his rival’s speech. "You won’t be prime minister because you don’t have the votes", Sumar tells Feijóo Sam Jones Marta Lois, spokesperson for the leftwing Sumar alliance, which is led by Spain’s acting labour minister and deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz, has accused Alberto Núñez Feijóo of disrespecting congress and wasting everyone’s time. “You’ve basically come here to lie to Spain and to yourself,” she told the PP leader. “You’ve based your investiture on a big lie, saying you won’t be prime minister because of your principles. But the fact is that you won’t be prime minister because you don’t have the votes and you know it.” "You’d be the bad guy in any novel, TV series or film" Absascal tells Sánchez Sam Jones Far-right Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, has also decided not to beat around the bush in his appraisal of Pedro Sánchez and his track record as prime minister. “There can be no greater act of corruption – no greater shamelessness in the eyes of the entire world – than one politician granting another politician an amnesty in return for his vote in order to stay in power,” he told MPs. Then he turned to Sánchez, whom he called, “the most corrupt prime minister in the history of Spain, more corrupt than anyone else, from any party; he is the paradigm of political corruption”. Unsurprisingly, Abascal will be voting in support of Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s doomed candidacy. “You’d be the bad guy in any novel, TV series or film,” he said. People’s party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo got a standing ovation from his political allies after delivering his speech today.