The Basque Nationalist Party will vote against Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in a no-confidence motion, Cadena Ser radio and La Sexta television said on Thursday, in a move that would almost certainly force him from office. Bar any last-minute u-turn, an absolute majority of lawmakers as varied as Catalan separatists and Basque nationalists will vote the no-confidence motion filed last week by the Socialists over a string of corruption woes hitting Rajoy's conservative Popular Party (PP). Aitor Esteban of the Basque PNV nationalist party, whose support proved decisive for the motion’s success, on Thursday warned that such a minority government would be “weak and difficult, complicated.”

“This is going to be a constant bing, bang, boom.”

Although Rajoy survived a similar no-confidence vote last year, Friday’s ballot draws a line under his rollercoaster time in office which began in 2011 and saw him implementing drastic spending cuts before winning re-election in 2015 and 2016. The Basque Nationalist Party, whose five seats were key to Sanchez securing enough parliamentary backing, withdrew support from Rajoy after dozens of people linked to his centre-right People's Party (PP) were sentenced to decades in jail in a corruption trial. • Rajoy’s no-confidence vote came after a court convicted his former aides of running a slush fund for his party’s campaign. We are going to start a new stage.”

The no-confidence motion — which needed 176 of 350 votes to pass — made strange bedfellows of 22 widely divergent parliamentary groups, including anti-establishment left-wing national parties, the political arm of the now-defunct armed Basque separatist group ETA, and regional Catalan nationalist parties hankering to negotiate an independent Catalan republic. Mariano Rajoy faced his last hours as Spanish prime minister Friday as he braced to lose a no-confidence vote and make way for his arch-rival Pedro Sanchez, leader of the opposition.
The Government of Mariano Rajoy is ousted after a motion of no confidence passes 180–169. Pedro Sánchez of the Socialist Workers' Party is sworn in as the new Prime Minister. This is the first time in Spanish history that a vote of no confidence has resulted in a change of government.