What does Sánchez's reappointment as PM mean for Spanish politics now?

Sánchez PM until 2027. Podemos likely out of cabinet, which might create the perception abroad of a more stable centre-left. The right in Spain needs a new leader and new ideas.

So, let’s see about what all that means, compared to where we were a couple of days ago. Sánchez is now formally PM again. He won the first-round vote in Congress yesterday with an overall majority of 179-171, the Speaker informed the King, the King signed the royal decree, the announcement appeared in the official gazette and this morning Sánchez went to swear his allegiance to the Constitution before the King, although looking at the video, the two gentlemen did not appear to be best of friends.

That’s it until 2027, unless the new left-regionalist Frankenstein II coalition proves too wobbly over time and falls apart, or unless the right tables a motion of no confidence in Sánchez at some point, which requires an overall majority they have just shown they don’t have, and which Vox can no longer even table becuase Abascal no longer has 10% of MPs in parliament (two short, at 33, of 350)

The result in Congress, slightly better for Sánchez, by one vote, than the vote in August for Speaker of the lower house, which the socialists also won, can be summarised as “everybody else versus the right”, and fits with the narrative and rhetoric Sánchez sold during the snap general election campaign he called at the end of May that it was either him or the conservatives would do a coalition deal that would put the far-right in national government…