The election of the Table of Congress reaches its key moment with the two tied blocks looking at Junts and CC

The Presidency, for which Gamarra (PP) and Armengol (PSOE) will compete, will determine who controls the Board of the Chamber

MADRID, 16 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Congress renewed in the elections of July 23 faces its constitutive session this Thursday in which the nine positions of the Chamber Table will be decided, including the Presidency, for which the socialist Francina Armengol and the 'popular' will fight Cuca Gamarra. The two blocks of left and right arrive at the voting tied and pending the vote of the seven deputies of Junts and the representative of Coalición Canaria.

The constitutive session of Congress will start at ten in the morning with the designation of the Age Table that will direct the voting. The presidency is assigned to the oldest deputy, who in this case is the former socialist minister Cristina Narbona, and who will be assisted, as secretaries, by the two youngest parliamentarians, who are also from the PSOE: Ada Santana from the Canary Islands and the Catalan Ferrán Verdejo.

After reading the names of the 350 elected deputies, the election of the Presidency of Congress will proceed by secret ballot and ballot box. The parliamentarians will write a name on a ballot and the person who obtains the vote of the absolute majority or failing that, the vote will be repeated and it will be enough to have more votes.

The PP presents its general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, and calculates a support of 171 votes: 137 from the PP, 33 from Vox and one from UPN. In front will be the socialist Francina Armengol, who also starts with 171 supports (121 from PSOE, 31 from Sumar, seven from ERC, six from Bildu, five from the PNV and one from the BNG).

The tiebreaker is in the hands of the CC deputy and the seven Junts, who have not yet advanced their vote. In fact, Carles Puigdemont's men will not decide until about an hour before the constitutive session begins.

Then, in another secret vote by ballot and ballot box, the four vice presidents will be appointed. Each deputy can only write a single name and the positions will fall on the four names with the most votes.

The left has already announced its two candidates, the socialist Alfonso Rodríguez Gómez de Celis and the Cádiz deputy Sumar Esther Gil, and the PP has proposed two other names (Marta González and José Antonio Bermúdez de Castro), but Vox had claimed the of Feijóo one of the four squares.

Thus, someone can be left out of the Vice Presidencies, either Vox or the representative of Sumar if, by dividing their 171 votes, the right manages to take three of the four places in contention, as happened four years ago with the secretaries de la Mesa, on that occasion with three for the left and only one for the PP.

The situation will be repeated in the next vote, when it is necessary to choose the four Secretaries of the Bureau. The left proposes the socialist Isaura Leal, and the deputy of En Comú Gerardo Pisarello, and the PP has announced Guillermo Mariscal and Carmen Navarro.

Once these votes have concluded, the nine elected will take their positions at the Presidential Table and whoever has achieved the Presidency will request from the other deputies the oath or promise to abide by the Constitution, a process that has not been exempt from controversy in recent years due to the formulas used above all by the Catalan separatists.

The Constitutional Court settled the issue in a recent ruling in which it stressed that these tags did not neutralize the compliance with the Constitution that is required to take office.

The session will conclude with the words of the new president of the Congress, who will then have to travel to the Palacio de la Zarzuela to inform the King of the results of the voting. This visit is the 'starting gun' to prepare the round of consultations of the Head of State with a view to the investiture.

The Tables of each Chamber will meet once this first session has been lifted to begin to formalize the creation of the parliamentary groups, which must be created in the following five days, in principle, on August 23.

To have your own group, you must have at least 15 seats or add five deputies and obtain 5% of the votes throughout the country, or 15% in all constituencies in which you compete.

And neither ERC nor Junts meet these requirements, since they only exceed 15% in two of the four Catalan constituencies), so they are interested in the fact that the majority of the Congress Table falls on PSOE and Sumar this Thursday so as not to end up in the Mixed group.