Spain’s prime minister secures his job, at a high cost

ABUS MARKEDPP “Sánchez traitor” driving past the Prado. Talk of a “coup” and a “dictatorship through the back door”. Boisterous protests every night in front of the Socialist party headquarters. Spain is seeing its biggest constitutional clash in years. And it is not likely to end soon.The crisis has been gestating for months. In July’s general election, the conservative opposition People’s Party () came first, but fell short of a majority even with support from the hard-right Vox party. But the Socialist party of the incumbent prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, fell even shorter, despite its alliance with Sumar, a farther-left party. Since then, however, Mr Sánchez has won support from five regional parties, including two Catalan separatist ones that held an illegal independence referendum in 2017. Junts per Catalunya (“Together for Catalonia”) held out for the biggest prize: an amnesty for hundreds of people prosecuted for the referendum. It would allow, most notably, its leader and Catalonia’s former president, Carles Puigdemont, to return from exile in Belgium.