The Irish Times view on Spain’s new government: A new epoch
What form the new epoch will take remains very hard to discern
Last Friday, minority prime minister Mariano Rajoy had been ignominiously ousted in a no-confidence vote proposed by the Socialist Party (PSOE) leader, Pedro Sánchez (above), despite the latter’s having only 84 seats in a 350 seat parliament. Photograph: Angel Navarrete/Bloomberg
After a week that suddenly turned the shape of Spanish politics inside out, changes continue at a speed that suggests that we are witnessing the end of an epoch rather than a freak accident in parliamentary arithmetic. What form the new epoch will take, however, remains very hard to discern.
Ten days ago, minority prime minister Mariano Rajoy had secured the support of a clear majority for his budget proposals. Yet by last Friday, he had been ignominiously ousted in a no-confidence vote proposed by Socialist Party (PSOE) leader Pedro Sánchez, despite the latter’s having only 84 seats in a 350 seat parliament. Yesterday Rajoy sent further shock waves through his badly damaged Partido Popular (PP) by resigning as leader, leaving it rudderless in its new role as the major opposition party.