Spain’s Sanchez on track to govern as key vote looms

Bloomberg

Spain’s acting PM  Pedro Sanchez failed to win enough support in a first parliamentary vote on Sunday, part of a process that should still allow him to form a government with help from Catalan separatists in 48 hours.
Sanchez, 47, needs to win the endorsement of the 350-seat chamber in a process that will drag out through Tuesday. Sanchez won the backing of 166 deputies to 165 votes against, with 18 abstentions.
While he didn’t have the numbers to ensure the required parliamentary majority on Sunday, he’s on track to win Tuesday’s decisive vote when he only has to have a simple majority of votes cast. That should be possible after he struck a deal for 13 deputies from the pro-independence Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya to abstain.
On January 4, in the first day of the debate on his bid to stay on as premier, Sanchez appealed to deputies to seize the chance to end a political stalemate that began when he sparked the first of two inconclusive elections in April. With parliament still split among five major parties and a medley of regional groups after a second vote in November, Sanchez sealed a coalition agreement with the anti-austerity group Podemos and coaxed Esquerra to help him turn the political math in his favor.
“This progressive coalition is without any doubt the best antidote to this coalition of the apocalypse,” Sanchez said.