Sanchez agonistes

摘要

IT TOOK ALMOST a year, two general elections and multiple political contortions. But at last on January 7th Pedro Sanchez, the Socialist caretaker prime minister, won a parliamentary vote to form a new government. It was by the narrowest of margins-167 votes to 165 with 18 abstentions-and it came at a price. The Socialists will govern in a potentially uneasy coalition with Podemos, a hard-left party, and will rely for their slender majority on Basque nationalists and four tiny regional parties. Mr Sanchez required, too, the abstention of Esquerra, the largest Catalan separatist party, granted in return for open-ended talks on the Catalan conflict, and also that of Bildu, the outfit of the Basque former terrorists of eta.