• Podemos and Compromís at odds over timing of censure motion in Congress
• Valencia group wants Socialist party on board in multi-party consensus motion
Anti-austerity party Podemos (We Can) is finding itself increasingly isolated in Spain’s Congress of Deputies over the party’s precipitous filing of a motion of censure against President Mariano Rajoy of the conservative governing Partido Popular (PP).
Valencia’s Coalició Compromís (Commitment Coalition), one of Podemos’ most important allies in the lower house of parliament, last week withdrew support for the motion, prompting Podemos’ leadership to charge its Valencian allies with seeking to provide cover support for the Socialist party (PSOE). Compromís governs in Valencian regional community in coalition with the Socialists.
Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias was said to have been particularly upset over not having been informed in advance of the Compromís decision. Compromís leaders countered that Podemos’ leadership had not given them advance warning they would move quickly to file their censure motion on the even of the Socialists’ vote to elect a new secretary-general.
Unwilling to wait for the results of the Socialist vote that saw ousted PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez returned to the party’s secretary-general post, Podemos filed its censure motion against Rajoy and then followed up the PSOE election by offering to withdraw its motion if the PSOE were to register a censure motion of its own. Sánchez declined, saying the political timing is poor and that the PSOE prefers to wait until September to push for a vote of no confidence.
Prior to the actual filing of the Podemos motion, the party’s political allies had begun to question the timing, with Xavier Domènech of Catalonia’s En Comú Podem (In Common We Can) announcing on 9th May his group’s preference for Podemos to wait for the PSOE elections before moving forward.
In an interview in the daily El Pais on Monday, Compromís leader Monica Oltra said her group believes the Podemos motion is “not viable” at the present time. She called for Podemos to withdraw the motion and enter into multi-party negotiations with the PSOE and others to arrive at a consensus motion of censure that would have greater possibility of succeeding in ousting Rajoy from power.
► Read More in Spanish at El Mundo, El Diario and El País …
