Spain's Pedro Sánchez beat the odds to stay prime minister. Now he must keep his government in power

BARCELONA, Spain — Spanish Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez pulled off his latest feat of political survival to get reelected as prime minister with an absolute majority in a highly fragmented parliament. Now, he will have to use all his dexterity to keep a mixed bag of supporters happy and his government in power for the next four years.

Sánchez, who has led Spain since 2018, has defied the odds before, but the ones he faces this time look especially daunting. To win the endorsement of a majority of lawmakers Thursday, he clinched deals with six small parties, including two Catalan separatist groups that demanded he take an unpopular action in return.

He agreed to push through a controversial amnesty for hundreds of people in legal trouble over the Catalonia region’s failed secession attempt in 2017. Among them is the region’s fugitive former president, Carles Puigdemont, who for many in Spain is public enemy No. 1 since he led the independence bid before fleeing to Belgium.

While political observers agree Sánchez has a hard road ahead, they are unwilling to start writing his political obituary just yet, especially given the record of endurance he chronicled in a 2019 memoir “A Manual of Resistance.” For one thing, analysts say it is very difficult to topple a Spanish government though a parliamentary maneuver.

“This government has the possibility of lasting because it is very difficult, almost impossible, for a no-confidence motion against it to succeed,” said Oriol Bartomeus, professor of political science of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. “That said, this is a government with serious stability problems.”

In Sánchez’s new government, his Socialists will lead a new minority leftist coalition with the anti-austerity Sumar, or Joining Forces, party. Together, they have 152 lawmakers, short of the majority 176 votes needed to pass bills. So the constant support of Puigdemont’s Junts (Together) party, its rival Catalan separatist party Republic Left of Catalonia, and two Basque parties are key.

Sánchez has said that by agreeing to the amnesty he is “making necessity a virtue,” a way of acknowledging he didn’t want it while arguing it will benefit Catalonia and the rest of Spain in the end.

Lluís Orriols, a political science professor at Madrid's Carlos III University, said that completing a four-year term may be difficult for Sánchez but that does not mean he is completely at the mercy of the separatists.

“In Spain a government can even lose a vote to pass a new budget and still keep going because it can maintain the budget from the previous year, so it is very difficult to quickly topple a government,” Orriols said. “It is not as easy as just saying that the moment that Junts or the Republican Left of Catalonia withdraw their support that we will have new elections."

Sánchez also has the advantage of being able to call a snap election if he sees a moment when he thinks the Socialists could win more seats and free themselves of having to rely on such a motley crew of backers.

It is also highly unlikely that Sánchez’s supporters would switch to backing the Popular Party due to its alliances with the far-right Vox party, which wants to reduce the powers of regional governments and rails against Catalan and Basque nationalism.

As Aitor Esteban of the Basque regionalist PNV party put it, the Popular Party's “tractor has an engine that is all clogged up because you have used Vox motor oil.”

Both of the Catalan parties have warned that they want much more than an amnesty. Their ultimate goal is for Madrid to authorize a binding referendum on independence for Catalonia, an idea that is an anathema for most Spaniards and even for many Catalonia residents.

“You have time to back out now,” Junts spokesperson Míriam Nogueras told Sánchez on Wednesday but added, “If you do not keep your end of our deal, we will not support any of your policies.”

A factor that could help Sánchez is the fierce competition between the two Catalan parties, which are set to compete in regional elections that must be held by 2025.

Depending on the results, the separatists could end up needing Sánchez as well —- or his Socialists could even retake power in Barcelona. Separatist parties fared poorly in Spain's July elections while the Socialists surged in Catalonia, and public support for the independence movement has waned amid in-fighting between Junts and the Republican Left for Catalonia.

“Everything will hinge on the strategy that Sánchez feels necessary to adopt for the regional elections, where they all have bargaining chips on the table,” Montserrat Nebrera, professor of constitutional law at the International University of Catalonia, said.

Bartomeus, the Autonomous University of Barcelona professor, thinks Sánchez stands to benefit from the separatists’ weaknesses.

“Despite appearances, the separatist push is dead,” he said. “All the tension generated by the separatist movement has moved to Madrid,” where there have been violent street protests against the amnesty, he added.

“The only way that the separatist movement could regain strength is if the Popular Party and Vox were to come into power," Bartomeus said. "That is the irony of Puigdemont’s situation: A Socialist government is not good for his party, but it is the only way that he can get the amnesty.”