The King faces an unprecedented round of consultations with two candidates who want to go to the investiture

Several of the partners that Sánchez trusts do not plan to go to Zarzuela to inform the head of state what their vote will be

MADRID, 16 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The King will have to face an unusual round of consultations next week to designate a candidate for the investiture since, for the first time in recent years, there are two candidates who aspire to ask for the confidence of Parliament: Alberto Núñez Feijóo, as the winner of the elections on July 23 and with 171 tied votes, and Pedro Sánchez, who sees himself capable of weaving alliances and adding enough votes to overcome the vote.

Article 99 of the Constitution establishes that, "after each renewal of the Congress of Deputies, the King, after consultation with the representatives designated by the political groups with parliamentary representation, and through the president of the Congress, will propose a candidate for the Presidency of the government".

The Magna Carta does not determine that the winner of the elections should be a candidate, it simply states that whoever achieves the confidence of Congress will be sworn in as president, either in a first vote with an absolute majority or in a second with more votes in favor than against.

Therefore, it is Congress who chooses the new Prime Minister, but it is the King who decides who will submit to the investiture debate. Until now, the decision was simple and there was only one candidate on the table, the one with the most votes in the elections, and another thing is that later his candidacy prospered or not in the vote in Congress.

Only once, in January 2016, did the winner of the elections inform the king that he was resigning as a candidate considering that he did not have enough votes: Mariano Rajoy. This forced the head of state to organize a second round of consultations and end up giving the opportunity to whoever came second, Pedro Sánchez, who failed to be sworn in.

On this occasion, both the winner of the elections, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the one who claims to have options to overcome the investiture vote, Pedro Sánchez, have shown themselves publicly willing to assume the task of submitting to the investiture debate.

From the PP they claim that Feijóo was the winner of the elections on July 23 and that he has already secured the vote of 171 deputies (PP, Vox and UPN) with the option of also joining the Canary Coalition. As they emphasize, today they have an advantage of 50 seats over the PSOE, since not all the parties of the Sumar coalition take their support for the socialist candidate for granted, much less the independentistas of ERC and Junts, nor the nationalists of the PNV and the BNG, parties that insist on refusing to issue "blank checks."

But the socialist Pedro Sánchez has declared the PP and Vox tandem "failed" and has branded the PP's calculations as "magic cabals", as he stresses that they do not have enough votes to overcome the investiture vote. Thus, he has announced his intention to "ask for the confidence" of Congress to be re-elected president.

With two aspirants to be designated candidates, the King's round of consultations takes on special relevance. It is estimated that the person who is elected this Thursday to preside over Congress in the new legislature will travel hours later to the Zarzuela palace to inform the King of the constitution of the Chamber and to account for the parties with parliamentary representation.

With this, the head of state will be able to organize his round of consultations to find out who each party plans to vote for. The idea is that the meetings will take place next week, but at least three of Pedro Sánchez's hypothetical partners do not plan to go to the appointment and, therefore, will not directly inform the King of their intentions: ERC, Junts and Bildu, who They do not recognize the political authority of the head of state and maintain a boycott, especially after his speech after the illegal referendum on October 1, 2017.