{"id":57388,"date":"2020-01-04T11:25:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-04T03:25:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=57388"},"modified":"2020-01-04T11:25:50","modified_gmt":"2020-01-04T03:25:50","slug":"spain-coalition-talks-sanchez-wins-catalan-support-to-form-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=57388","title":{"rendered":"Spain coalition talks: Sanchez wins Catalan support to form government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez
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\u00a0MADRID, Jan 4\u00a0(NNN-AGENCIES)\u00a0—<\/strong>Spain’s interim Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez has been backed by Catalonia’s largest separatist party to form a coalition government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) MPs are to abstain in a confidence vote next week, paving the way for a new term for S\u00e1nchez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ERC said a Sanchez-led government would hold talks on Catalonia’s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spain has been racked by political uncertainty for almost a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country saw two inconclusive elections last year coupled with Catalonia’s on-going drive for independence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In November’s election, S\u00e1nchez’s Socialist Party (PSOE) won the most seats, but fell short of the 176 required for a majority in parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Socialist Party has struck a deal to form a coalition government with far-left party Podemos. Yet the Socialist Party and Podemos still don’t have a majority in parliament, meaning they need the support of other smaller parties, including the ERC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the ERC’s 13 seats and a possible combination of support from other leftist or Basque parties, Prime Minister S\u00e1nchez could continue in office at the head of a coalition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The future of Catalonia, a semi-autonomous region in north-east Spain, was a major issue in last November’s election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The election came less than a month after Spain’s Supreme Court handed out lengthy jail sentences to nine Catalan independence leaders, over their role in organising an outlawed referendum in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The move triggered protests and violence on the streets of Barcelona and other cities in Catalonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Catalan crisis dominated the election campaign, with parties on the right – Vox, the PP and the centre-right Ciudadanos – taking a hard-line anti-separatist stance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Catalonia, the ERC won three seats more than its centre-right separatist rival, Junts per Catalunya (Together for Catalonia), the party of former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ERC voted to support a new Spanish coalition government in return for talks on independence in November last year. — NNN-AGENCIES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spain’s acting Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez \u00a0MADRID, Jan 4\u00a0(NNN-AGENCIES)\u00a0—Spain’s interim Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez has been backed by Catalonia’s largest separatist party to form a coalition government. Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC) MPs are to abstain in a confidence vote next week, paving the way for a new term for S\u00e1nchez. The ERC said a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[209],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57388"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}