The worst omen is on the horizon: there will be new general elections

Alberto Núñez-Feijóo, the candidate proposed by King Felipe VI to try to form a government, seems to have understood that he will not have the majority of the Congress in his favour, neither the absolute majority in the first vote, nor the simple majority in the second, as the opposing bloc will join forces and give him a resounding NO vote.  

However, there are still some who think that the Basque Nationalist Party, which has been anchored in Basque society for more than a century, will demonstrate its equanimity and balancing spirit, and with its 5 votes (it would give the absolute majority to the Popular Party and its supporters, with 178), will allow a process of institutional changes to be opened that recognises the legitimate historical rights of the Basque people and its crucial role in the history of Spain. However, this hypothesis is not sufficiently solid or plausible, although the PNV has been the only parliamentary group among the fractious ones to respond to the King's call for consultations.

That would leave the scenario in which the current acting president Pedro Sánchez tries to obtain a majority of votes in Congress to repeat his promiscuous coalition government. Hence the back and forth, the unnatural negotiations and the back-and-forth, I-give-you-and-you-give-me manoeuvres.  

But in this second scenario there is something that has not been sufficiently taken into account, and that is that King Felipe VI must nominate him as a postulant candidate. Will he do it? Many of us think not. Why not? Because in the round of consultations prior to the appointment of Pedro Sánchez, the King will once again be unable to "ascertain the existence of a sufficient majority" of votes in support of him to guarantee the confidence of the Congress of Deputies.  

The four parliamentary groups that refused to attend the King's audience for consultations on 21 and 22 August, which were Esquerra Republicana (7 MPs), Junts per Catalunya (7 MPs), EH Bildu (6 MPs) and BNG (1 MP in the Mixed Group), will repeat their refusal, under penalty of committing harakiri in front of their electorate. And if the King has no proof that Sánchez can obtain a sufficient majority, he is not obliged to appoint him. Because if he did, most Spaniards would not understand the role of the head of state in this critical situation.  

From which it can be deduced that, after the statutory two months have passed, the King will dissolve the Cortes and call new general elections.  Will the Spanish people, in all their diversity, put up with what they consider to be a joke? The spectre of abstention looms on the horizon.