Police in Madrid, Spain, deployed tear gas and rubber bullets on Tuesday night against a protest that reportedly attracted 7,000 people to the front of the headquarters of the Socialist Workers Party of Spain (PSOE), objecting to a proposed amnesty for Catalonian separatist rioters and taunting police with anti-Muslim chants.
The protests are a result of several failed attempts by lawmakers in Parliament to form a government, as elections in July did not give President Pedro Sánchez, the head of the PSOE, enough seats in Parliament to govern. Spain’s conservatives are largely split between the establishment center-right People’s Party (PP) and the populist conservative party Vox, which collectively secured more seats than the leftist block of the PSOE and Sumar but also fell short of a governing majority.
In an attempt to form a functional governing coalition, Sánchez began floating the possibility in October of offering legal amnesty to violent rioters arrested during a wave of separatist activity in northern Catalonia in 2019.
“A national election in July left no party close to an absolute majority and with Sánchez in need of the support of several smaller…
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