Spain face mass unemployment, business failures, spiralling public debt and now, government infighting
summer Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s Socialist prime minister, said that if he agreed to a coalition government with Podemos, a far-left outfit, “I wouldn’t sleep at night.” After another indecisive election—the fourth in four years—he formed just such a coalition, which took office in January. Weeks later Spain was laid low by the novel coronavirus, and the novel minority coalition is struggling to cope, leaving the prime minister scrambling for broader support.
Mr Sánchez has responded by calling for a “pact for national reconstruction”, in theory involving the opposition, regional governments, businesses and unions. This is a conscious echo of the Moncloa Pacts of 1977, a set of agreements on economic measures between government and opposition which were a pillar of Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. One poll found 92% in favour of another such pact—but 79% thought it improbable.
Podemos and its leader, Pablo Iglesias, have added to the problems. Perhaps with some justification, he has seemed desperate to leave his ideological mark on government policy. At his instigation the government issued a decree making sackings during the pandemic unlawful, even as it has forced many businesses to suspend trading. Mr Iglesias’s hostility to the private sector and the monarchy arouses widespread mistrust.
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