Well we have a government

As I type I'm listening to the radio. They are voting for the investiture of the President of the Spanish Government.  The man who's up for President, Mariano Rajoy, is a right winger from the Partido Popular, the conservatives. The process involves reading out the name of each deputy who then says yes, for Rajoy, no against Rajoy or abstention. Rajoy needs a simple majority to be elected. The only way he can get his majority is if the PSOE, the socialists, don't vote against him and, in fact with the number of abstentions already recorded he's in.

The abstention of the socialists is either a tactical move to avoid a third general election or a complete betrayal of principal depending on your point of view. The socialist party has lost its leader during the in fighting about what to do. Even to the last minute there were two options. Abstention of all of the socialist ranks or just the minimum abstention to let Rajoy win. The latter option would have allowed the ideologically opposed an easy way out but the socialists went for party orders, general abstention. The ex socialist leader resigned rather than abstain or break ranks. The Catalan socialists are sticking to the no vote, against Rajoy, as they said they would. There was a moment when it sounded as though one of the socialist heavyweights, Patxi López, had broken with party orders and voted against his party line of abstaining but it was just a bit of a misunderstanding. Eight socialists couldn't bring themselves to support, or not oppose, Rajoy though and voted no.

There they go. He's elected. Months and months of a caretaker government and two general elections are now just a historical footnote.