In Spain, the Presidency of the Government is renewed every time a general election takes place. Although the Spanish Constitution stipulates that this occurs every four years, the President of the current Government has the prerogative of being able to dissolve the Cortes Generales early and call new elections, as Pedro Sánchez did on 29 May.

The process to elect a new president of the Government begins once the new Parliament is formed. Specifically, the king began with a round of consultations with representatives appointed by political groups with parliamentary representation. After this meeting, he informed the Congress president who his proposed candidate was for the Presidency of the Government.

From there, as stipulated by the rules of the Congress of Deputies, the head of the assembly sets a date to convene a plenary session that will debate the investiture.

In this particular case of the fifteenth legislature, Pedro Sánchez, from the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), faces the possibility of being re-elected as president of the Spanish Government. After Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s (Popular Party) coronation attempt failed, Sánchez will be the candidate who tries to garner the assembly’s confidence in the coronation debates, which will take place on Wednesday, November 15 and Thursday, November 16. Everything indicates that the current president will be re-appointed at this first attempt thanks to the 179 supports he already has. In the plenary session that will start on the 15th at 12.00 local time, Sánchez will be able to present indefinitely the political program of the Government he wants to form, as stipulated in Congressional regulations. After a short break, representatives of each parliamentary group will be able to intervene to replicate the socialist leader’s proposal for a maximum of 30 minutes. Sánchez can respond one by one or in groups, and they are entitled to a ten-minute reply.

After all interventions are completed, on the first Thursday the 16th

voting, in which the deputies will be named one by one, alphabetically, from randomly selected letters, so that they say “yes”, “no”, or “abstain” to the investiture. On this occasion, Sánchez will need the support of an absolute majority of the assembly to be sworn in. This means you have to hear “yes” 176 times.

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