Podemos abstains from second round of voting after it could not reach deal with Socialists

Spain’s Socialist caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has failed at a second attempt to form a government after he could not reach agreement with his only potential coalition partner, the anti-austerity party Unidas Podemos.

Sánchez only needed a simple majority in parliament to get a deal across the line but after 48 hours of hectic negotiating the Podemos leader, Pablo Iglesias, announced his party would abstain during the second round of voting and the result was 124 in Sánchez’s favour, 155 against and 67 abstentions.

“What’s the use of the left if we lose even when we win?” an exasperated Sánchez asked Iglesias before the vote.

The sticking point has been Podemos’s desire for more ministerial positions than Sánchez was willing to offer, in particular the portfolio of the exchequer.

“I aspire to preside over the Spanish government but not at any price,” Sánchez said. “We can’t put the public exchequer in the hands of someone who has never managed a state budget.”

Timeline Spain heads for fourth election in four years Show Hide 2015 general election Voter anger over economic woes and corruptions scandals leaders to a hung parliament. The two main parties - the ruling People’s party (PP) and the Socialists (PSOE) - suffer big loses at the expense of newcomers (leftwing) Podemos and (rightwing) Ciudadanos. Neither the PP nor the PSOE manage to secure a majority in parliament to form a new government, so … 2016 General election … another election is held in June. Voter turnout is the lowest since the transition to democracy in 1975. The PP’s vote share increases, but parliamentary deadlock continues. PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez refuses to allow PP leader Mariano Rajoy to form a minority government, citing the corruption scandals swirling around the PP. Sánchez resigns Years of simmering discontent among PSOE members with Sánchez boil over and he is ousted as leader after powerful factions rebel against his refusal to allow Rajoy to form a government. Rajoy secures role as PM With Sánchez gone, the political paralysis is broken and Rajoy returns as PM after the PSOE abstains on an investiture vote in parliament. Sánchez re-elected as PSOE leader Sánchez regains the leadership of the still-divided PSOE, his hardline anti-Rajoy stance bolstered by a slew of corruption scandals involving former senior PP figures in Madrid’s regional government. Rajoy testifies in court Rajoy becomes the first serving Spanish PM to testify in a criminal case. He emphatically denied any knowledge of an illegal funding racket in the PP. Cifuentes scandal The president of Madrid’s regional government, PP's Cristina Cifuentes, resigns after video footage emerged of her apparently being caught stealing two tubs of face cream seven years previously. Rajoy had refused to heed calls to sack Cifuentes after an earlier scandal involving false claims about her academic qualifications. Sánchez becomes PM The PSOE calls a vote of no confidence in the scandal-plagued Rajoy administration, and it passes through parliament with the help of regional parties and Podemos. Sánchez is sworn in as PM the next day. Budget impasse Sánchez is unable to get his 2019 budget passed through parliament after the Basque and Catalan nationalist parties who had supported him against Rajoy vote against it. Yet another election is called. 2019 general election Another inconclusive election sees the PSOE increases its vote share, as the PP vote plummets and the far-right Vox party enters parliament for the first time. Speculation immediately turns to how the PSOE will secure the majority needed to form a government. Fresh elections loom again Sánchez’s efforts to put together a government are hobbled by the refusal of the Citizens party to countenance a pact with the PSOE, and by the socialists’ own firm veto on entering a coalition with Unidas-Podemos. If an agreement is not reached by 23 September a new general election will be held on 10 November.

As both sides sought to blame the other, Sánchez’s deputy, Carmen Calvo, complained that Podemos had not given an inch in the negotiations since Tuesday’s failed investiture and had pushed for what it had wanted all along, “a government within the government”.

“We ask for respect,” Iglesias said in reply to Sánchez. “It’s difficult to negotiate in 48 hours what we haven’t been able to achieve in 80 days. What we are asking for is competencies, not armchairs.”

Minutes before the voting began, Iglesias announced that Podemos was prepared to renounce running the ministry of employment in return for having a say in employment legislation, but this too was rejected.

Last weekend when Iglesias agreed to step aside as Podemos leader after Sánchez described him as the principal obstacle to achieving a coalition government, Spain seemed on course for its first left-leaning government in seven years.

However, although there has been ample opportunity since an inconclusive election in April to reach an agreement, the parties remain locked in a stalemate.

“I think what Sánchez offered Podemos was very positive because it offered them a real role in the cabinet,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Carlos III University in Madrid. “Both parties have been damaged by this process. In September we need to see if the Socialists change their strategy and also if the Basque and Catalan parties change their current policy of abstaining. Ultimately, though, all this could have been settled.”

Sánchez will continue as acting prime minister and Congress will reconvene no later than 23 September when he make a third and final attempt to form a government. If he fails to win the necessary support, a general election will be held on 10 November, the fourth in as many years.