Cards in the PP’s hands

While the leader of the socialist party, Pedro Sanchez, continues to behave like the late Ian Paisley by simply saying "no, no, no" to everything acting Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy suggests, Ciudadanos may have sneaked into a power-broking position while also piling the pressure on the socialists.

Leader of the liberal Ciudadanos party, Albert Rivera, met Rajoy on Wednesday and set out terms in bid to break the deadlock.

Rivera said that his party is not in the process of talking about entering into a government with the PP, but it is prepared to open the door for Rajoy to be reinstated as PM.

However, Rivera gave Rajoy a political shopping list of demands the PP have to agree to before talks between the two parties go further.

His six demands are: politicians indicted for corruption must be immediately fired; the end of parliamentary immunity; a new electoral law; the end of pardons in cases of political corruption; a maximum two terms per prime minister; and more transparency, including parliamentary investigation of PP’s illegal funding.

The PP is going to vote on Ciudadanos’s six commandments next week and, if approved, then a government could be on the horizon. If not, it could be a new election.