• PP leader will try today for Ciudadanos support as prelude to Sánchez meeting
• Rajoy to make PSOE choose between abstention vote or third-round elections
Acting Prime-Minister Mariano Rajoy of the conservative Partido Popular (PP) has slated a key meeting Wednesday with Socialist party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sánchez, following a scheduled meeting today with centre-right Ciudadanos party leader Albert Rivera in which Rajoy will hope to win a degree of support for his candidacy to lead the next government that would in turn increase pressure on Sánchez for a PSOE abstention in the anticipated vote on the PP leader’s investiture bid in Congress.
Socialist spokesperson Antonio Hernando reiterated Monday the decision reached on Saturday by a PSOE Federal Committee meeting of regional party leaders to vote a clear “No” on the Rajoy investiture bid and PP spokesperson Fernando Martínez Maillo confirmed to reporters Monday that Rajoy is prepared to receive the negative response from Sánchez.
PP sources have told the daily El País newspaper that following the Rajoy-Sánchez meeting Wednesday, the conservative party will launch two weeks of talks with smaller parties seen willing to negotiate their support for Rajoy and then approach the Socialists once more with an ultimatum of either abstaining on Rajoy’s investiture ballot or facing the prospect of another general election, for which the PP will attempt to lay blame on the PSOE’s refusal to either actively support or passively enable his investiture as next president.
► Read More in Spanish at Público and El País …
