Pedro Sánchez successfully won his tie-breaker - after a last-minute deal with Together for Catalonia (Junts) - and thus saved his first match ball. The Congress of Deputies has elected Francina Armengol as the new speaker of the lower house, replacing Meritxell Batet. It's been a night that many in Spanish politics have spent glued to their mobiles, but the negotiations have paid off. The former Socialist leader of the Balearic Islands autonomous community will command the lower house during the fifteenth Spanish legislature thanks to the 178 votes of the left bloc: PSOE, Sumar, ERC, Bildu, the PNB, the BNG, to which the seven of Junts were added this morning. Cuca Gamarra, candidate of the People's Party (PP), obtained 139 and, unexpectedly, Ignacio Gil Lázaro, of Vox, obtained 33 after the two parties of the right disagreed and the plan to vote for a common candidate fell apart.
The days before the first session of the new Congress made a knife-edge vote likely, due to the uncertain situation created by the failure of any Junts-Socialist agreement, and it was not until a meeting of the Junts executive this Thursday morning at 8am that the Catalan party's seven deputies formally decided their vote, after reaching an agreement with the PSOE, which included, among other points, an agreements to make Catalan an official EU language. The pro-independence MPs thus voted yes in the first round and added their votes to the left bloc, enabling an absolute majority for Armengol. Despite not communicating it publicly, in the counting of the ballots there was no alternative candidate that could presuppose that an election would be decided in the second round. The seven MPs from the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) also voted with the progressive bloc after reaching an agreement with the PSOE. Both Junts and ERC are at pains to underline that this negotiation is separate from the one that is still to come: today's for the speaker and Bureau; and the future one, at an uncertain date, for the investiture of a new Spanish prime minister. Next will come that second round of negotiations, which are likely to be even harder.
Armengol is the fourth woman to preside over the Congress of Deputies after Meritxell Batet (PSOE), Ana Pastor (PP) and Luisa Fernanda Rudi (PP). There have been nine men since Spain's return to democracy after the Franco dictatorship. The legislatures have been divided between the PP and the PSOE, with the exception of the first legislatures dominated by the UCD. Of the thirteen speakers, seven have been part of the PSOE, four of the PP and two from the now-defunct UCD.