Government block loses majority with 153 seats vs 170

153 seats to 170: The government block loses its relative majority

The critical figure is not the result itself, but the arithmetic gap. For the first time in two decades, the coalition supporting the Spanish government enters a legislature with fewer seats than the entire opposition. In 2004, the Executive held 164 seats versus 148; in 2008, 169 versus 154; in 2019, 158 versus 143. In 2023, the picture is different: 153 against 170. This is not a mathematical nuance. It is the difference between choosing a partner and depending on one who wants to see you fall.

What changes when the government loses its relative majority

For three legislatures, the Executive needed only to negotiate with one or two small groups. With 158 or 169 seats, it could switch allies depending on the issue—some for social matters, others for fiscal, others for international—and close agreements with the fifty deputies outside the large blocks, including Ciudadanos. This was dubbed variable geometry and worked for years.

Now that arithmetic has expired. With 170 seats against them, any vote requires adding everyone who is not PP or VOX, and the margin narrows to the point that each law requires an affirmative yes, not abstention, from three of the four independentist parties. And their positions are antagonistic regarding fiscal, social, and international matters.

Any cut required by Brussels that is unacceptable to partners could torpedo the initiative, and the opposition waits ambush-style in every vote. An investiture might be closed with great effort; the uncomfortable question is what happens next.

Investiture: amnesty, referendum, and endless blackmail

Negotiations to invest the president are already described as a ordeal, with concessions deemed serious by analysts: amnesty for some and the possibility of a referendum for others. The problem does not end with the investiture session. The blackmail, they warn, will be permanent and in many areas, not just with the left-wing coalition.

There is a factor often overlooked, summarized by a participant: independentist parties are parties first, independentists second. They will act in their electoral interest, and today it may suit them to squeeze the government, while tomorrow it may suit them to let it go. The PNV and Bildu compete in the same territory with opposing positions; ERC and Junts, too.

This is compounded by the calendar. With Basque elections in less than a year and the possibility of a shift toward Bildu, the PSOE must decide whom to ask for votes in Madrid and whom to support in Vitoria. And if ERC anticipates a possible overtaking of Junts in Catalonia, the board complicates further.

One-year legislature or repeated elections?

This question permeates everything. The most optimistic scenario assumes the investiture is done—a participant assigns it more than 50% probability—because what seems taboo today was done before: pact with Bildu. Then, yes, that same analysis predicts a short legislature, one year or slightly more, until external supports, enemies in their territories, break by implosion.

The contrary scenario holds that there will be no investiture and elections will be repeated, hoping wear and tear takes its toll. And there is a third, more cynical reading: that the president cares little as long as he stays in the chair, and that he will endure four years by decree-law even without approved budgets.

The CERA vote and seats still in flux

The arithmetic is not entirely closed. The count of votes from residents abroad, the CERA vote, is resolved in five days and can shift seats. In Madrid, the last contested seat was decided by 1,500 votes, with nearly 20,000 ballots remaining. In Pontevedra, the distance was barely 400 votes. Girona appears in the thread's predictions.

With such margins, the parliamentary balance currently assumed can vary by a couple of seats in any direction. Enough to change the tone of an investiture already negotiated drop by drop and to reopen majority calculations supporting any agreement.

The ECB tap: the limit La Moncloa does not control

Above the pacts lies a variable not voted on in Congress. According to calculations circulating in the thread, spending is sustained with new debt: 80 billion euros annually from Europe, a figure that, with accumulated refinancing, skyrockets toward 300 billion. If the tap closes, no decree fixes it, and with Germany in recession, no one guarantees it stays open.

Underlying this is inflation. Some recall melons at 2.25 euros per kilo as if they were times of wine and roses, warning that the belt will tighten further. This is compounded, according to a warning in the debate, by the spending cap imposed by Brussels and the Senate's ability to return budgets that do not meet it, a veto independent of the Executive's will.

What if the first cut required by Europe clashes with partners, the first vetoed decree takes the investiture down, and everything starts over?