Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced his decision to call a new general election after a tense meeting with his Cabinet in a bid to put an end to the deadlock gripping the Spanish Parliament.
The snap vote, to take place on April 28, followed a crisis sparked when the Government’s budget plan was voted down earlier this week by two Catalan separatist parties who had always supported the leading party.
The rejection of Mr Sanchez’s budget came as a surprise, as the Catalan parties didn’t raise any concerns about the draft proposals, which aimed at increasing spending to address some of the country’s long-standing financial inequalities.
The lack of support on the budget law has been seen as a lack of confidence in Mr Sanchez.
Pablo Simon, a political science professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University, told CNBC: “Sanchez has not passed the budget by himself.
“It makes sense as consequence to assume that he does not have a workable majority in Parliament.”
The outcome of the vote on the budget didn’t only spark a fresh political crisis in Madrid, but also represented a rarity in the Spanish political landscape.
The Wednesday’s vote in the Spanish Parliament, where 191 parliamentarians out of 350 voted against the budget, marked the second time a Spanish Government lost a vote on the budget since 1979.
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