After its resounding loss in the first round of voting on reinvesting Pedro Sánchez as prime minister of Spain, PSOE has decided to take the initiative to reopen negotiations with Podemos in the 48 hours it's got until Thursday's second vote. The decision was taken in a meeting this Thursday lunchtime between Sánchez and his inner circle, including Carmen Calvo and José Luis Ábalos, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting. It took place in the Congress after the failed vote.
Calvo, the acting deputy prime minister, then called Podemos's Pablo Echenique to organise a meeting "when we can". They have to rebuild broken bridges before the second round of voting on Thursday at lunchtime. The clock is ticking.
PSOE has accepted it has to take the initiative and set its negotiating team back to work. According to sources close to Sánchez, the plan is to make a new offer to Podemos for a coalition government, looking to move beyond the disagreements laid bare over the last two days. "It's been very emotional. If there's rationality, there's a solution," the sources say.
Podemos is waiting for this new offer. Party sources say they're hoping for a wide-ranging proposal with marked improvements over the one they've gone on the table which they felt would leave them as "mere decoration" in the government.
This Tuesday, Sánchez only won the support of the one deputy from the Partido Regionalista de Cantabria. Unidas Podemos abstained and Catalan pro-independence parties voted against. That gave him a total of 124 votes in favour to 170 against with 52 abstentions, far short of the absolute majority he needed. On Thursday he would only need a simple majority, in other words more votes in favour than against, but that seems still a long way off.