The extreme and populist left lowers their demands to form Government

USPA NEWS - The Socialist Party and the extreme and populist left Podemos met Wednesday in Madrid to try an agreement that allows the socialist candidate, Pedro Sanchez, to be president of the Spanish Government. After a two-hour meeting, Sanchez said he was now "closer to a Government of change."

"With all the precautions and all the difficulties, we are now closer to a Government of change that to repeat the elections," said Socialist Pedro Sanchez at a press conference. The reason is that the secretary general of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias, had come to the meeting lowering their demands to support the Socialist candidate and staged renouncing part of the Government, if that facilitates the choice of Pedro Sanchez as president. But Iglesias warned that their support is not free: "The ball is now the Socialist Party," he said.

Despite the good feelings, the agreement between the two formations is still far. The extreme and populist left accepts the center party's Citizens support through abstention, but refuses to be integrated into the Government, and Citizens, which has an agreement with the Socialist Party, says that if Podemos enter the Government its agreement with the socialists will be broken. In between, the Socialist candidate, Pedro Sanchez, said Wednesday: "I am a man of his word and any negotiations must respect our agreement with Citizens." However, he was willing to organize a meeting to three with two formations that can give the Government.

A spokesman for Citizens considered, after the meeting between Sanchez and Pablo Iglesias, that "nothing has changed because Podemos still talking about chairs." He was referring to the condition posed by churches to facilitate the nomination of Pedro Sanchez: he refuses to be vice president, but the Socialist Government must have ministers of Podemos. As everyone seems to agree on it is the need for Government to evict conservative Popular Party and especially the acting President of the Government, Mariano Rajoy.