Spanish-style stability – Pedro Sánchez wins the vote of confidence in parliament, but Spain is torn apart. The amnesty to Catalan nationalists led to a wave of protests. Meanwhile former prime minister José Maria Aznar: “We are in the hands of political forces that hate our constitution”

The President of the current government, Pedro Sánchez, will have the necessary support to be re-elected during the investiture debate this afternoon. Specifically, he has 179 'yes' votes. An absolute majority that guarantees his investiture and that he has gathered after reaching agreements with ERC, Junts, PNV or EH Bildu, as well as Sumar, among others. The General Secretary of the PSOE will leave the Chamber this Thursday with more support than other candidates who have also reached La Moncloa.

From the investiture of Adolfo Suárez in 1979 to that of Sánchez this week, Congress has hosted several investitures in its hemicycle, as well as several motions of censure, some of which have triumphed and others of which have been defeated. The first investiture debate was led by the aforementioned UCD politician, who was appointed President of the Government by 183 votes in favour, 149 against, eight abstentions and 10 absent deputies.

He was followed by Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, following Suárez's resignation. It was February 1981, and the day of the second vote could not take place because of the 23F coup attempt. It was only two days later, on the 25th, that he was installed thanks to 186 votes in favour and 158 against.

The now veteran leader of the PSOE is an expert in investiture sessions. He has been a candidate in several of them and has a record number of votes: no less than 207 'yes' votes. With this support, he was elected President of the Government by Parliament in 1982.

Four years later, Felipe González repeated his victory, this time with 184 votes in his favour, and in 1989 he was re-elected with 167 votes in his favour. According to the Congress website, this was because the Speaker's Committee had set the absolute majority for the investiture session at this figure, following a disputed electoral appeal against the results of the elections in the constituencies of Pontevedra, Murcia and Melilla, which affected eighteen deputies.

In 1993, he won 181 votes, far more than the majority he needed, to enter what would be his last parliamentary term. José María Aznar then took over the government and his investitures were approved with 181 votes in favour (1996) and 202 votes in favour (2000).

The PP's years in power gave way to a new PSOE government led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who won the confidence of the House for the first time in 2004 with 183 votes in favour. One legislature later, he repeated the feat in La Moncloa after winning the second vote in 2008 with 169 'yes' votes, 158 'no' votes and 23 abstentions.

The PP won again at the ballot box in 2011 with Mariano Rajoy. At his first inauguration, he received 187 votes. A clear absolute majority that he would not repeat a few years later. In 2016, he was re-elected in the second vote with 170 'yes' votes, thanks to the abstention of the PSOE, with the exception of a handful of Socialist deputies who broke party discipline and voted against. On the same day, a few hours earlier, Pedro Sánchez had resigned his parliamentary seat. The party was in tatters and a deep crisis was unfolding.

In the first days of 2020, Pedro Sánchez was sworn in as head of government. On 7 January, the Socialist general secretary won the second round of voting with 167 votes in favour, 165 against and 18 abstentions.

Now he goes to the investiture session with more support, a dozen more. This is despite the PP's attempts to get PSOE deputies to betray him in the vote. The PP has even encouraged the possibility of a 'tamayazo' to prevent Sánchez's re-election.