New Spanish president Pedro Sánchez takes office

The new Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, took office this Saturday morning. One day after ousting Mariano Rajoy in a vote of no confidence in Parliament, he swore in before the king of Spain, Felipe VI, in the residence of the monarch, La Zarzuela. Sánchez is expected to nominate his ministers in the coming hours or days, and to form a new government shortly. One or more of his cabinet members are expected to be Catalan, and the bets are already open on who he will choose.

His initiative to strip Rajoy of the Spanish presidency was only successful after the supports of the Catalan pro-independence parties and the Basque Nationalist Party, along with the Socialists, Sánchez’s party, and Podemos, including Catalan En Comú Podem 12 MPs. All in all, 36 out of the 47 Catalan MPs in the Spanish Congress supported Sánchez as president, therefore rejecting Rajoy’s cabinet, the one which has been implementing direct rule in Catalonia for seven months.