2020 vote of no confidence in the government of Pedro Sánchez
A motion of no confidence in the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez was tabled by the far-right party Vox on 29 September 2020, and was debated and voted in the Congress of Deputies between 21 and 22 October 2020. It was the fifth motion of no confidence in Spain since the country's transition to democracy. The motion was announced by Vox leader Santiago Abascal during a Congress plenary debate on 29 July 2020, justifying it on the basis of an alleged mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain on the part of Sánchez's government. Despite hints at fielding a "prestigious independent candidate", failure in finding a suitable alternative candidate led to the motion's tabling being delayed until late September and in Abascal himself being nominated to defend the party's programme. No party other than Vox (which commands 52 deputies in the Congress) showed a willingness to support the motion, a fact that, coupled with parliamentary arithmetics—with Spanish right-from-centre parties commanding 153 out of the 176 seats required for it to pass even in the event that they coordinated themselves to support it—meant that it would fail in its attempt to bring down Sánchez's government. With the voting resulting in only