Image copyright Reuters Image caption Pedro Sanchez had refused to make a deal

The leader of Spain's opposition Socialists, Pedro Sanchez, has resigned, in a move that could end months of political deadlock.

Mr Sanchez stood down after losing a vote by the party's federal committee over supporting the formation of a conservative-led governing coalition - a move he had strongly opposed.

The past week had already seen almost half of the party's executive resign.

Spain has been in a political limbo for the past nine months.

The results of a general election in December 2015 left a hung parliament. The majority Popular Party (PP) under acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has sought to form a coalition government but Mr Sanchez repeatedly blocked their attempts.

In attempt to break the stalemate, a second election was held on 26 June 2016 but, again, no party won an absolute majority.

The Socialist Party (PSOE) has long been divided between supporters of Mr Sanchez and those who want to end the stalemate by supporting a coalition.

Many delegates at Saturday's federal committee meeting at party headquarters in Madrid had turned up hoping to force Mr Sanchez out.

On Wednesday, 17 of the 35 members of the PSOE executive resigned in protest at Mr Sanchez's stance. </s> RENATA BRITO

 Barcelona, Spain.- Spain’s ousted prime minister Mariano Rajoy announced Tuesday he will step down as leader of the country’s conservative Popular Party, just days after his government fell in a noconfidence vote prompted by a corruption scandal.

An emotional Rajoy, who has led the party for 15 years, told party members in Madrid that it was time to end his “journey” and hand over the leadership to someone else at a party congress later this year.

“It is the best for me and for the Popular Party, and I think for Spain as well,” the 63-year-old politician said. Lawmakers voted to oust Rajoy as prime minister last Friday following a corruption scandal involving several former members of his party. He was replaced as prime minister by Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez </s> Long-time socialist voter Francisco Gómez chained himself to the railings outside his party’s local headquarters in the city of Mérida, in western Spain this week.

He was protesting about the rebellion against his party’s leader, Pedro Sánchez. A few hours earlier, 17 members of the socialist executive had resigned in a bid to unseat the leader, and as Sánchez and another 17 loyalists stood firm, an all-out, very public, war had been unleashed in the heart of the party.

“They’ve been pulling the rug from under Pedro Sánchez for ages,” Gómez said, warning that he and other grassroots members of the party would not let it be turned into a “brothel”.

Gómez’s direct action reflects the scale of the drama within the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). Founded in 1879, it has a long and illustrious history and has governed for 21 of the last 34 years. But the party’s current woes represent its biggest crisis since the transition to democracy of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“During the Spanish transition there was a common saying, which still applies today,” Juan Francisco Fuentes , a historian of the Socialist party, told The Irish Times. “There are three kinds of enemies: enemies, arch enemies and party colleagues.” The PSOE is currently taking political self-destruction to unbelievable extremes.”

This crisis was triggered by the results of two regional elections last Sunday. The socialists lost ground in both, slipping to third place in Galicia and fourth in the Basque Country.

It was the latest in a series of electoral disasters for the party, following a worst-ever result in the inconclusive December 2015 general election, and an even poorer one in the June rerun. Sánchez responded to complaints about the weekend’s performance and his leadership by calling a snap leadership election for later this month, hoping his enemies in the party would not have time to prepare a rival candidacy.

But on Wednesday, Felipe González, a former Socialist prime minister, publicly accused Sánchez of “betraying” him by not abstaining in a congressional investiture vote earlier this month, despite allegedly promising that he would.

The abstention would have allowed conservative Mariano Rajoy to end a nine-month political stalemate in Spain and form a new government. However, it would also have run the risk of alienating traditional socialist voters. Soon afterwards, Sánchez’s rivals broke cover, as the 17 rebels resigned, calling on him to do the same. Sánchez and his team refused, even locking Antonio Pradas, until a few hours earlier the party’s national policy chief, out of the socialist headquarters in Madrid.

In a fierce editorial, El País newspaper, traditionally a supporter of the Socialist party, described Sánchez as “an unscrupulous fool” whose personal ambitions have been holding the country to ransom.

Comparisons have been made with Labour’s split in the UK over Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, especially in light of Sánchez’s own tendency to appeal to grassroots supporters for backing. But ideology has barely figured in the Spanish socialists’ current hostilities. Instead, this is a conflict born of personal clashes and confusion generated by a new electoral landscape.

The powerful regional premier of Andalucía, Susana Díaz, is widely seen as being behind the putsch. Her ambition and thinly veiled disdain for Sánchez’s leadership have undermined him ever since he emerged as a relative unknown to take the party’s reins in the summer of 2014.

But Sánchez has also had to contend with the arrival, in that same year, of Podemos as a major rival on the left. Under the leadership of Pablo Iglesias and, buoyed by its status as a relatively untainted new force, Podemos has inevitably hurt the socialists.

Sánchez made his own attempt at forming a government in March, with the support of the liberal Ciudadanos, but fell well short of the votes needed in Congress.

Since then, he has refused to help Rajoy do the same, while insisting he can still reach out and form a leftist alternative. The party is split over this plan and over whether to help Rajoy by abstaining in a future vote, or to sit tight until a December general election and risk losing even more ground.

The party’s economic chief, Manuel de la Rocha , is one of the members of the executive who have remained loyal to Sánchez.

“His position is firm that the socialist party should never facilitate a PP government,” he told The Irish Times following a meeting of loyalists on Thursday.

As for the prospect of forming a leftist government with Podemos and other parties, De la Rocha admitted it was “always difficult and now looks even harder”.

However, the most immediate challenge for Sánchez, the man many blame for Spain’s unprecedented political impasse, is to survive an emergency meeting of the party’s federal committee today. </s> Madrid, Sep 12 (IANS) Spanish Minister for Health, Social Services and Equality Carmen Monton on Tuesday resigned after allegations of plagiarism, media reports said.

According to the media reports, Monton had copied 19 of the 52 pages of the investigative work she produced as part of the Masters Degree she obtained from the Department of Law at the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid) between 2010 and 2011.

These revelations followed a series of articles published in the online newspaper “Diario.es” revealing further irregularities in her Master including having her marks for part of the course changes from “not present” to “pass”, Xinhua reported.

Monton’s resignation came just hours after Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had publicly given her his backing, saying she was “doing a fine job and she is going to continue doing so”.

Monton is not the first politician to be forced to resign over allegations of irregularities of the qualifications they obtained from the University Rey Juan Carlos.

Cristina Cifuentes, of the right wing People’s Party (PP), was forced to resign as the President of the Madrid Autonomous Community in April this year after similar allegations.

Pablo Casado, who was recently elected leader of the PP, also faces accusations of irregularities in the Masters Degree which he also obtained from the same university. </s> MADRID — Spain’s health minister has resigned over irregularities found in her master’s degree, the second cabinet member to be replaced in the just over 100 days since Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez came to power.

Carmen Monton announced her resignation late on Tuesday, a day after news website elDiario.es published irregularities in her 2011 degree on gender studies. Her final work, it later emerged, had chunks of text copied from websites and other works.

Sanchez, who became prime minister in June promising to root out corruption, lost a culture minister over a tax fine. His centre-left government has been marred by erratic policy-making, with several U-turns on cabinet decisions.

The resignation also puts pressure on opposition leader Pablo Casado, whose degree from the same public policy institute as Monton’s is under investigation.
The leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party, Pedro Sánchez, resigns.