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Spain is set to install its first fully functioning government in 10 months on Saturday when parliament is expected to grudgingly grant conservative leader Mariano Rajoy a second term as prime minister.
The vote will draw a line under two inconclusive elections and fruitless attempts at coalition-building between bickering parties, but it won’t guarantee political instability. Rajoy’s weak minority government will struggle to pass legislation.
The opposition Socialists have instructed their lawmakers to abstain in a parliamentary confidence vote set for 7.45 pm allowing Rajoy, caretaker prime minister since December, to be confirmed as leader of a proper administration. The result will be a triumph for the 61-year-old Rajoy, who is renowned as a political survivor.
After winning a 2011 election, Rajoy slashed public spending to tackle rising debt as Spain endured a severe recession.
Unemployment soared to 27 percent and the country’s banks needed a 41 billion euro ($45 billion) European bailout.
Voters punished Rajoy’s People’s Party (PP) even as the economy later recovered, stripping it of its absolute majority.
But the PP still won the most votes in elections last December and in June, and Rajoy resisted calls from rival parties to step aside and let another PP leader try and form a coalition.
He will now have to negotiate with his political opponents to pass any legislation, including the budget, given his PP has only 137 seats in the 350-seat parliament.
“This is going to require an effort from everyone, on our part too, in terms of trying to pass legislative initiatives,” senior PP lawmaker Rafael Hernando said in a radio interview on Saturday.
