Not any time soon, I believe. At least that's not the plan, Podemos already said they're hoping for elections in 2020. But it all boils down to whether PSOE is able to govern with their minority...
Not any time soon, I believe. At least that's not the plan, Podemos already said they're hoping for elections in 2020. But it all boils down to whether PSOE is able to govern with their minority and how the rest of the conflicts evolve...
In any case, I don't think they can call for elections for the next two months, after that, it'll depend on how those two months have been spent.
I'm a little surprised that Sánchez is going to try and continue with such a thin margin, especially since PNV normally don't get involved with Spanish politics.
I'm a little surprised that Sánchez is going to try and continue with such a thin margin, especially since PNV normally don't get involved with Spanish politics.
Why? It's actually their only move. If they call for elections, according to the latest polls, they'd be really close to Podemos in percentage and Ciudadanos would be on top, and they would surely...
Why? It's actually their only move. If they call for elections, according to the latest polls, they'd be really close to Podemos in percentage and Ciudadanos would be on top, and they would surely pact with PP preferably and get the presidency.
Having a few months in the government the PSOE has a chance to change the people's perception and gain more voters. It's also good for Podemos, since now they can steer PSOE in their direction and prepare to win the lections with PSOE in the future.
PNV won't be that relevant, I believe, and they're happy the budget they negotiated is being approved anyway, so they got their money. Catalan parties are happy to get rid of PP, but we will see how that goes later.
Can someone ELI5 why the PM got ousted? What I understand about the scandal didn't implicate him directly. Am I just not quite grasping something about how the parliamentary system works?...
Can someone ELI5 why the PM got ousted? What I understand about the scandal didn't implicate him directly.
Am I just not quite grasping something about how the parliamentary system works? (American here)
Rajoy was the campaign manager for a while while this was going on. Part of those campaigns were paid with illegal money, although he claims he didn't know anything about the economic matters of...
Rajoy was the campaign manager for a while while this was going on. Part of those campaigns were paid with illegal money, although he claims he didn't know anything about the economic matters of the campaigns. He also protected the treasurer after the scandal went public for as long as possible (two days after the story was made public and everyone knew the treasurer had millions of euros in Switzerland, Rajoy sent him an SMS saying: Be strong!)
The treasurer of the party had an off-the-books account and he gave illegal payments to top tier politicians in the party. (Rajoy hasn't been charged of getting any illegal money yet, but the ledge of the off-the-books account had an annotation of one of the recipients called "M. Rajoy", but Rajoy says the documents are false).
In any case, the sentence says that the party had an institutionalized criminal structure (getting public money through private companies, I think) and profited from it for years. (Some people say that this civil charge is not a criminal charge only because when this happened, the criminal law didn't include this type of crime. If it'd happen today they would've probably got a harsher sentence.) The party had a reform of its headquarters paid partly with this illegal money. When the judges asked for the treasures computers to be handed over, the party formated them... So the whole party has been charged of benefitting from this illegal scheme, and Rajoy was the president of the party (or had other responsibility positions) during some of those years.
During the trial the now ex-prime minister and other top brass politicians were called to testify about the case and they denied the existence of this off-the-books payments, whose existence is now considered doubtlessly proved by the sentence, so their credibility has been put into question.
Notice that this trial was not specifically about this opaque account (that one is still in process, and might be even worse for the party).
All in all, although Rajoy is not directly charged, his whole party has lost credibility, they have hundreds of corruptions cases and billions of euros embezzled over the years, so the Prime Minister and his cabinet, being responsible for the party and many of them at least indirectly implicated, did no longer have the confidence of the parliament.
Wow, thanks for the in-depth explanation! So it's more of a "the buck stops here" situation than something where he played a direct role. It's good to see some kind of accountability, I guess.
Wow, thanks for the in-depth explanation! So it's more of a "the buck stops here" situation than something where he played a direct role. It's good to see some kind of accountability, I guess.
Yes, that's right, it's a "the last straw" situation. They were getting away with it for very long, but the court sentence made it "official", I guess.
Yes, that's right, it's a "the last straw" situation. They were getting away with it for very long, but the court sentence made it "official", I guess.
Now we have to see how quickly PSOE calls for general elections.
Not any time soon, I believe. At least that's not the plan, Podemos already said they're hoping for elections in 2020. But it all boils down to whether PSOE is able to govern with their minority and how the rest of the conflicts evolve...
In any case, I don't think they can call for elections for the next two months, after that, it'll depend on how those two months have been spent.
I'm a little surprised that Sánchez is going to try and continue with such a thin margin, especially since PNV normally don't get involved with Spanish politics.
Why? It's actually their only move. If they call for elections, according to the latest polls, they'd be really close to Podemos in percentage and Ciudadanos would be on top, and they would surely pact with PP preferably and get the presidency.
Having a few months in the government the PSOE has a chance to change the people's perception and gain more voters. It's also good for Podemos, since now they can steer PSOE in their direction and prepare to win the lections with PSOE in the future.
PNV won't be that relevant, I believe, and they're happy the budget they negotiated is being approved anyway, so they got their money. Catalan parties are happy to get rid of PP, but we will see how that goes later.
Very good points I hadn't considered. I'm still trying to get a handle on Spanish politics & history, so following this is really helpful :)
No problem. Feel free to ask. :)
Can someone ELI5 why the PM got ousted? What I understand about the scandal didn't implicate him directly.
Am I just not quite grasping something about how the parliamentary system works? (American here)
Rajoy was the campaign manager for a while while this was going on. Part of those campaigns were paid with illegal money, although he claims he didn't know anything about the economic matters of the campaigns. He also protected the treasurer after the scandal went public for as long as possible (two days after the story was made public and everyone knew the treasurer had millions of euros in Switzerland, Rajoy sent him an SMS saying: Be strong!)
The treasurer of the party had an off-the-books account and he gave illegal payments to top tier politicians in the party. (Rajoy hasn't been charged of getting any illegal money yet, but the ledge of the off-the-books account had an annotation of one of the recipients called "M. Rajoy", but Rajoy says the documents are false).
In any case, the sentence says that the party had an institutionalized criminal structure (getting public money through private companies, I think) and profited from it for years. (Some people say that this civil charge is not a criminal charge only because when this happened, the criminal law didn't include this type of crime. If it'd happen today they would've probably got a harsher sentence.) The party had a reform of its headquarters paid partly with this illegal money. When the judges asked for the treasures computers to be handed over, the party formated them... So the whole party has been charged of benefitting from this illegal scheme, and Rajoy was the president of the party (or had other responsibility positions) during some of those years.
During the trial the now ex-prime minister and other top brass politicians were called to testify about the case and they denied the existence of this off-the-books payments, whose existence is now considered doubtlessly proved by the sentence, so their credibility has been put into question.
Notice that this trial was not specifically about this opaque account (that one is still in process, and might be even worse for the party).
All in all, although Rajoy is not directly charged, his whole party has lost credibility, they have hundreds of corruptions cases and billions of euros embezzled over the years, so the Prime Minister and his cabinet, being responsible for the party and many of them at least indirectly implicated, did no longer have the confidence of the parliament.
Wow, thanks for the in-depth explanation! So it's more of a "the buck stops here" situation than something where he played a direct role. It's good to see some kind of accountability, I guess.
Yes, that's right, it's a "the last straw" situation. They were getting away with it for very long, but the court sentence made it "official", I guess.