Spain: A “destructive” censure of government
The Spanish conservative government of Mariano Rajoy has been overthrown by Parliament after the highest national court condemned top officers of the ruling People’s Party to two-figure numbers of prison years. The sentence declared proven that the party had created "an authentic and effective system of institutional corruption through manipulation mechanisms of central, regional and local public contracts” and declared the testimony of Rajoy denying the facts “not sufficiently credible.”
As Karl Popper proclaimed, one of the few pleasures of a citizen in a representative democracy is to overthrow the government by peaceful means –actually to watch how it is overthrown.
The short duration of the Rajoy government, 19 months, is not a surprise. As we know well, the duration of a parliamentary government is a direct function of the broadness of its support, which in this case was based on only one-third of popular votes. It was the smallest minority government in Spain in the last 40 years.
Yet the new one, led by socialist Pedro Sanchez, although its parliamentary support was made official by the speakers of 11 (eleven) parties in Parliament, it is formed only by the Socialist party, which received less than one-fourth of popular votes. Spain remains the only country in Europe where there has never been a multiparty coalition majority government. It is, thus, very likely that the new government will be even shorter-living than the previous one, perhaps lasting for about a year.
The Spanish Constitution imported from Germany the “constructive” motion of censure which requires an alternative majority support for a candidate to overthrow the incumbent, a rule that was devised for the sake of government stability. During the debate, the candidate Sanchez asserted that his was “a ‘constructive’ motion of censure to say ‘yes or no’ to Rajoy”, which sounded, indeed, rather destructive. With the possibility of avoiding a new election when a government is dismissed, the turnover of governments is the opposite of stability.
Sanchez has emphasized that his government will be utterly loyal to the European Union and will faithfully fulfill its directives and instructions in macroeconomic policy. He has forgotten his previous intention to cancel the constitutional reform that was introduced a few years ago to give priority to reducing the public deficit and paying the debt. Even the leftist party Podemos has declared that it will accept the current constrained budget as long as “it is managed by a non-corrupt government.” (The European red line has also been visible these days in Italy, where the President of the Republic vetoed a euroskeptical candidate to economy minister on the background of some grumbling from the EU’s high rulers).
In short: A smaller minority government, likely to have the shortest duration ever, to remain within the constraints of the EU on policy-making, in a climate of increasing public scrutiny and judicial prosecution of politicians. One needs to be very hungry of braggadocio to run for an office like this.
COMMENTS
COMMENTS
Thanks for sending this my way. I was reading the articles about this with a great deal of interest.
David Lublin
American University, Washington, DC
I would disagree strongly with this. If Cs stops being opportunistic and supports the new government, on the many issues they agree on, there is nothing destructive about this vote.
Angel Ubide
Goldman Sachs, Washington, DC
Eric Hershberg
American University
Josep Mª, encertat anàlisi de l'eliminació destructiva de'n Rajoy. Sanchez won't be able to cope with Catalan separatism, though. Salut! Salvador Giner
Barcelona
Posted 2 days ago by Josep M. Colomer