PSOE's secretary general, Pedro Sánchez, will see the motion of no-confidence against Mariano Rajoy through to the end. Yesterday, Rajoy's PP was found in a court's sentence to have earned "quantifiable economic benefits" in the Gürtel affair. Sánchez won't this time reject the support of the pro-independence parties, but warned that it would be a PSOE government which would result from the motion. He said this not once, but twice, and also guaranteed that he would call elections, once his objectives of "normality, democratic regeneration and social agenda" are met. In other words, he won't say when.
The secretary general has made an election dependent on elements of his manifesto, like the "return to normality", "attending to social emergencies" and "democratic regeneration" to "clean out corruption". The constitutional deadline for any election would be 2020, since a change of government doesn't restart the count for the legislature's 4 years.
"Mr Rivera has to be reminded that motions of no-confidence are limited in our Constitution and we will call [an election] the sooner, the better," he said. Mr Rivera is Albert Rivera, Ciudadanos's leader, for whom an early election is preferable. As such, they've called for it to be an immediate consequence of the motion of no-confidence. The inference is that PSOE would prefer to wait a while, in an attempt to regain some of the ground they've been losing in the polls since July 2017. PSOE, however, is putting the pressure on Ciudadanos: "There's a double dilemma: to not do anything, to look away, to not accept any kind of political responsibility and to agree to the deterioration and devaluation of our democracy" or "to defend the Constitution" with a "serene, constitutional" response.
As regards nationalist and pro-independence parties, Sánchez didn't say whether he would formally request their support, limiting himself to not discounting the option. "We live in a parliamentary democracy; the speaker of the Congress and the budget were supported by nationalist parties," he said. For this reason, he called on their "responsibility and generosity" to get Spain out of the "quagmire of PP corruption". Finally, he warned that he would defend "sovereignty, integrity and social harmony".
Finally, PSOE's leader has announced that on Monday the party will hold an extraordinary federal committee meeting at 5pm and that the head of state, king Felipe VI, had been informed and would be kept up to date with developments. Meanwhile, PSOE has already registered its motion of no-confidence in the Congress.