page_title: 2015–2016 Spanish government formation
section_title: PSOE crisis and Sánchez's ouster
hierarchical_section_title: 2015–2016 Spanish government formation / Second formation round (June–October 2016) / Formateur Mariano Rajoy (PP) / PSOE crisis and Sánchez's ouster
caption_attribution_description: 15.01.29 Premio aFelipe Glez 2
context_page_description: Attempts to form a government in Spain followed the inconclusive Spanish general election of 20 December 2015, which failed to deliver an overall majority for any political party. As a result, the previous cabinet headed by Mariano Rajoy was formed to remain in a caretaker capacity until the election of a new government.
  After a series of inconclusive inter-party negotiations, Pedro Sánchez tried and failed to pass an investiture vote on 2 March. Subsequently, a political impasse set in as King Felipe VI could not find a new candidate to nominate with sufficient parliamentary support. As a result, a snap election was held on 26 June. The second election also proved inconclusive, and a failed investiture attempt by Mariano Rajoy on 31 August raised the prospect of a third election.
  On 1 October, a party rebellion resulted in Pedro Sánchez being ousted as leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and the latter voting to allow the formation of a People's Party minority government. This materialized on 29 October when the PSOE abstained in Rajoy's second investiture bid, thus ending the political deadlock after 314 days without an elected government.
context_section_description: Internal criticism of PSOE secretary-general Pedro Sánchez for his hardline stance on Rajoy's investiture—said to be a contributing factor to the political deadlock—had been kept at bay by the party's performances in the 2015 and 2016 general elections, where despite securing its two worst election results since 1977 the party held its own against Podemos's push, averting the threats from Sánchez's critics—who had hoped to hold him to account for a hypothetical electoral collapse—from materializing. However, the poor party showing in the 25 September Basque and Galician regional elections provided the pretext for dissenters—led by Susana Díaz—to call for Sánchez's immediate resignation the next day, to which the latter replied by surprisingly announcing a primary election for October and daring any challenger to come out and dispite the post to him. The internal movement within the PSOE were seen positively by Rajoy, who was said to be "waiting for the PSOE to kill off Sánchez" in the hopes that a new leadership could lead the party to reconsider its abstention in a new investiture voting.
  On 27 September, signs of a breakdown in party discipline became evident: the leader of Sánchez's critics and Andalusian president Susana Díaz publicly voiced her willingness at becoming the party's new secretary-general, with a majority of members within the party's parliamentary group in the Congress of Deputies voicing their opposition to Sánchez's plans of holding an express leadership election amid the ongoing government formation process and with a general election looming for December. Former Socialist prime minister Felipe González added to the pressure by declaring that he felt "deceived" by Sánchez because of the latter having allegedly promised him to abstain in Rajoy's investiture. This led to the resignation of 17 ouf of the 35 members from the party's executive committee on 28 September, in a move aimed at triggering Sánchez's own resignation. Sánchez refused to resign, prompting the party to descend into chaos.
  Sánchez barricaded himself within the party's headquarters in Madrid and accused rebels of "staging a coup", whereas his critics proclaimed that they were now in control and demanded a caretaker committee to lead the party in the interim. Susana Díaz criticized Sánchez's record and accused him of seeking a congress "out of personal interest", offering herself to unite the party and hold a leadership election "in due course" once the political deadlock in Spain had been resolved. Further chaos ensued within a meeting of the party's federal committee on 1 October, as disagreements between the two factions on the assembly's agenda and voting census delayed its start by several hours. Sánchez repeatedly blocked Díaz's attempts to hold a vote on his post as the two sides failed to agree on the committee's purpose, with him trying to force a secret ballot on his proposal for a party congress that was suspended amid accusations of vote rigging by critics because of the ballot box being "hidden" and "unsupervised". This action was said to have cost Sánchez the support of some of his allies, and in a subsequent voting on Sánchez's proposal turned into a vote of confidence on him—this time by a show of hands—he lost it by 132 to 107, prompting him to resign as PSOE secretary-general and allowing Díaz's supporters to take over the shattered party.
  Reactions to Pedro Sánchez's resignation were mixed. Pablo Iglesias commented that "supporters of a PP government have gained the upper hand within the PSOE" and called for opponents to Sánchez's ouster to rally behind Podemos as the only remaining leftist alternative in Spain to a Rajoy-led government, whereas Albert Rivera praised Susana Díaz's move and called for the PSOE to "help form a government". With the rebel faction taking over the party, political relations with Podemos were expected to strain, as Sánchez's critics had considered an abstention in a potential forthcoming vote on Rajoy's investiture as the only way out of the deadlock and to avoid a third general election 
caption: Andalusian president Susana Díaz led the internal PSOE revolt against Sánchez supported by former prime minister Felipe González.
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